| 释义 |
crabbed, a.|ˈkræbɪd, kræbd|
Also 4 crabyt, 4–6 crabbid, 4–8 -it, 5– -yd, (Sc. 6–7 crabit, 6 craibit).
[orig. f. crab n.1 + -ed: cf. dogged. The primary reference was to the crooked or wayward gait of the crustacean, and the contradictory, perverse, and fractious disposition which this expressed. Cf. Ger. krabbe crab, whence, according to Grimm, ‘because these animals are malicious and do not easily let go what they have seized, LG. ene lütje krabbe (a little crab) a little quarrelsome ill-conditioned man (Bremen Wbch.)’; also in Saxony said of self-willed, refractory children. So E.Fris. krabbe crab, transf. a cantankerous, cross-grained man (who is refractory and froward like a crab, sticking fast or going backwards, when he ought to advance); whence krabbîg contentious, cantankerous, fractious, cross-grained (Doornkaat Koolman). Literal senses of ‘cross-grained, crooked’, and ‘knotted, gnarled, un-smooth’, applied to sticks, trees, and the like, also appear; these re-act upon the sense in which the word is applied to persons and their dispositions. In later use there is association with the fruit, giving the notion of ‘sour-tempered, morose, peevish, harsh’.]
1. Of persons (or their dispositions): orig. Of disagreeably froward or wayward disposition, cross-grained, ill-conditioned, perverse, contrarious, fractious. (Now blending with b.)
a1300Cursor M. 8943 (Gött.) Þe iuus þat war sua crabbid [Cott. & Fairf. cant] and kene. c1440Promp. Parv. 99 Crabbyd, awke, or wrawe [W. wraywarde], ceronicus, bilosus, cancerinus. c1440York Myst. xxix. 130 For women are crabbed, þat comes þem of kynde. 1547Latimer Serm. & Rem. (1845) 426 He that is so obstinate and untractable in wickedness and wrong doing, is commonly called a crabbed and froward piece. 1570Levins Manip. 49/9 Crabbed, froward, prauus, iratus. 1643Milton Divorce Introd., The little that our Saviour could prevail..against the crabbed textuists of his time. 1844Alb. Smith Adv. Mr. Ledbury vii. (1886) 22 Despite the persevering labours of those crabbed essayists. a1845Hood Tale of Temper i, Of all cross breeds of human sinners, The crabbedest are those who dress our dinners.
b. In later use: Cross-tempered, ill-conditioned, irritable, acrimonious, churlish; having asperity or acerbity of temper. Since 16th c. a frequent epithet of old age, in which perhaps there was at first the sense ‘crooked’; cf. sense 5. Also often influenced by, and passing insensibly into, sense 9.
1535Stewart Cron. Scot. II. 542 That I thairfoir crabit or cruell be. 1579Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 43 To you they breed more sorrow and care..because of your crabbed age. 1583Stubbes Anat. Abus. ii. 65 He that is borne vnder Cancer, shall be crabbed and angrie, because the crab fish is so inclined. 1590Spenser F.Q. iii. ix. 3 Therein a cancred crabbed carle..That has no skill of court nor courtesie. 1601Weever Mirr. Mart. C j, Craft, anger, vsury, neuer seene in youth: In crabbed age these vices we behold. 1610Shakes. Temp. iii. i. 8 O She is Ten times more gentle, then her Father's crabbed; And he's compos'd of harshnesse. 1635N. R. tr. Camden's Hist. Eliz. ii. xvi. 170 A man of a crabbed disposition and rash to raise commotions. 1779F. Burney Lett. Aug., Calling you a crabbed fellow. 1837Carlyle Fr. Rev. ii. iii. vii, His Father, the harshest of old crabbed men, he loved with warmth, with veneration. 1863Geo. Eliot Romola iii. xviii, A crabbed fellow with crutches is dangerous. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) V. 302 [The] ignorant..lays up in store for himself isolation in crabbed age.
c. transf. of things.
a1400–50Alexander 3794 Colwers..& crabbed snakis And oþire warlaȝes wild. 1634Milton Comus 477 How charming is divine Philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose. 1682Dryden Dk. of Guise iii. i, But if some crabbed virtue turn and pinch them, Mark me, they'll run..and howl for mercy.
2. Of the temporary mood: Cross, vexed, irate, irritated; out of humour. (In early use only Sc.: now dial.; often pronounced crab'd.)
c1375Sc. Leg. Saints, Laurentius 786 Sume mene sait he crabyt is. 1513–75Diurn. Occurrents (1833) 81 Quhaira he was crabbit and causit discharge the said Johne of his preitching. 1530Palsgr. 773/2, I waxe crabbed, or angrye countenaunced. Je me rechigne. 1552Abp. Hamilton Catech. (1884) 9 It is nocht ane thing to be crabit at our brotheris persone and to be crabit at our brotheris falt. 1812J. H. Vaux Flash Dict., Crab'd, affronted; out of humour; sometimes called being in Crab-street. 1861Holland Less. Life i. 19 A business man..will enter his house for dinner as crabbed as a hungry bear.
†3. Of words, actions, etc.: Proceeding from or showing an ill-tempered or irritable disposition; angry; ill-natured. Obs.
1362Langl. P. Pl. A. xi. 65 For nou is vche Boye Bold..to..Craken aȝeyn þe Clergie Crabbede wordes. c1430Lydg. Bochas vii. iv. (1554) 168 b, Her feminine crabbed eloquence. 1581J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 277 Your crabbed and snappish accusation agaynst Luther. a1632T. Taylor God's Judgem. i. ii. i. (1642) 155 He..chased him away with bitter and crabbed reproaches.
†b. Of the countenance: Expressing a harsh or disagreeable disposition: cf. crab-face, crab n.1 13.
[c1375Sc. Leg. Saints, Vincentius 202 Dacyane hyme-self nere wod Become..And kest his handis to & fra And trawit [editor reads crabbit] continence cane ma. ]
1603H. Crosse Vertues Commw. (1878) 51 When a crabbed visage and a misshapen body, shall stand by an amiable and louely personage. 1641Hist. Edw. V 6 Hard favoured of visage, such as..is called..among common persons, a crabbed face.
†4. Of things: Harsh or unpleasant to the taste or feelings; unpalatable, bitter. Obs. or arch. (Cf. sense 9.)
c1340Gaw. & Gr. Knt. 502 After crysten-masse com þe crabbed lentoun, Þat fraystez flesch wyth þe fysche & fode more symple. 1593Tell-Troth's N.Y. Gift 40 A kinde dinner and a crabbed supper. 1622R. Hawkins Voy. S. Sea (1847) 128 The crabbed entertainment it gave us.
†5. Of trees, sticks: Crooked; having an uneven and rugged stem, gnarled, knotted; having cross-grained and knotted wood. Obs.
c1510Barclay Mirr. Gd. Manners (1570) B vj, To make a streyght Jauelin of a crabbed tree. 1539Taverner Erasm. Prov. (1552) 5 To a crabbed knotte muste be soughte a crabbed wedge. 1594Nashe Unfort. Trav. 53 A crabbed briery hawthorne bush. 1675Traherne Chr. Ethics xxxiii. 540 A crabbed and knotty piece of matter.
†b. of the human body and (fig.) nature.
1601Dent Pathw. Heaven (1831) 18 Troubled..with a crabbed and crooked nature. 1623Cockeram iii, Thersites, one that was as crabbed in person as he was Cinicall and doggish in condition. 1632J. Hayward tr. Biondi's Eromena 16 This king..being of a crabbed nature, pimple faced and a creple. 1799Southey Sonn. xv, A wrinkled, crabbed man they picture thee, Old Winter.
†c. Of land, weather, etc.: Rough, rugged.
1579Fenton Guicciard. v. (1599) 221 A crabbed mountaine, where they lost threescore men at armes and manie footmen. 1583Stanyhurst Aeneis iii. (Arb.) 71 God Mars the Regent of that soyle crabbed adoring [Virg. iii. 35 Geticis arvis]. 1622R. Hawkins Voy. S. Sea (1847) 128 The crabbed mountains which overtopped it. 1876Robinson Whitby Gloss., Crabb'd or Crabby. Weather terms. ‘Bits o' crabb'd showers’, the rain or sleet driven by cold winds.
†6. Rough, rugged, and inelegant in language.
1561T. Norton Calvin's Inst. i. 41 Though he be rough somtime & crabbed in his maner of speach. 1656Cowley Misc., Answ. Copy of Verses 13 Such base, rough, crabbed, hedge Rhymes..set the hearers Ears on Edge.
7. Of writings, authors, etc.: Ruggedly or perversely intricate; difficult to unravel, construe, deal with, or make sense of.
1561T. Norton Calvin's Inst. iii. 310 To debarre crabbed questions. 1612Brinsley Lud. Lit. viii. (1627) 122 The best and easiest Commentaries of the hardest and most crabbed Schoole-Authors. 1675Baxter Cath. Theol. ii. i. 2 Writing..in crabbed Scholastick style. 1763–5Churchill Poems, Author, O'er crabbed authors life's gay prime to waste. 1788Reid Aristotle's Log. iv. §6 Those crabbed geniuses made this doctrine very thorny. 1830Mackintosh Eth. Philos. Wks. 1846 I. 179 Mr. Hume, who has translated so many of the dark and crabbed passages of Butler into his own transparent and beautiful language. a1839Praed Poems (1864) II. 76 Since my old crony and myself Laid crabbed Euclid on the shelf. 1890Times 20 Jan. 9/2 A hard, dry, and rather crabbed collection of notes and statistics.
b. Of handwriting: Difficult to decipher from the bad formation of the characters.
1612Dekker If it be not good Wks. 1873 III. 287 Lawes Wrap'd vp in caracters, crabbed and vnknowne. 1800E. Hervey Mourtray Fam. I. 91 It is such a crabbed hand, I can't read half of it. 1853Faraday in B. Jones Life (1870) II. 318 Do you see how crabbed my hand-writing has become? 1879F. Harrison Choice Bks. (1886) 18 A few worn rolls of crabbed manuscript.
†8. Of or pertaining to the zodiacal sign Cancer. Obs. rare.
1634Sir T. Herbert Trav. 43 Muskat is a citie..upon the Persian Gulfe and almost Nadyr to the crabbed Tropique.
9. Of the nature of the crab-tree or its fruit; fig. sour-tempered, peevish, morose; harsh.
1565–73Cooper Thesaurus s.v. Acerbus, Vultus acerbus, sower or crabbed. 1599Marston Sco. Villanie 170 Against the veriuice-face of the Crabbedst Satyrist that euer stuttered. 1611Shakes. Wint. T. i. ii. 102 Three crabbed Moneths had sowr'd themselues to death. 1656Duchess of Newcastle in Life of Dk. (1886) 313 As for my disposition, it is..not crabbed or peevishly melancholy. 1726Amherst Terræ Fil. xxxvi. 189 This philosophical apple-tree..never grew kindly, nor produced any thing but sour crabbed stuff. 1865Holland Plain T. iii. 107 Only treated respectfully by wives and children because they are crabbed and sour.
10. Comb., as crabbed-looking, crabbed-handed adjs.
1806–7J. Beresford Miseries Hum. Life (1826) v. xi, That sort of hideous old crabbed-looking crone of fashion. 1837Sir F. Palgrave Merch. & Friar i. (1844) 34 A lean-visaged, crabbed-looking personage. 1848Thackeray Van. Fair xliii, That crabbed-handed absent relative. |