| 释义 |
spick and span, a., n., and adv.
Also spick-and-span (occas. spic).
[Shortening of next. See also speck and span.]
A. adj.
1. = next.
1665Pepys Diary 15 Nov., My Lady Batten walking through the dirty lane with new spicke and span white shoes. 1731Swift On Death Dr. Swift xxv, His way of writing now is past;..I keep no antiquated stuff; But spick and span I have enough. 1793Cowper Let. Wks. 1836 VII. 214, I have built one summer-house already, with the boards of my old study, and am building another spick and span, as they say. 1809European Mag. LV. 21 The great number of spick and span articles that have been received into our catalogue. 1849H. Mayo Pop. Superst. (1851) 51 Fresh from the mint, and spic and span. 1877Spurgeon Serm. XXIII. 442 Their shifting gospel changes about every ten years, and comes out spick and span as a new theology.
2. Particularly neat, trim, or smart; suggestive of something quite new or unaffected by wear:
a. Of persons in respect of dress.
1846Thackeray Crit. Rev. Wks. 1886 XXIII. 159 Benvenuto, spick and span in his very best clothes. 1863W. W. Story Roba di R. I. iv. 64 The shopkeepers..looking spick-and-span, as if they had just come out of a bandbox. 1886‘Maxwell Gray’ Silence Dean Maitland I. i. 9 A dog-cart,..driven by a spick-and-span groom.
b. Of things.
1857Dufferin Lett. High Lat. (ed. 2) 87 You must not suppose..that the..land-slip of Thingvalla took place quite in the spick and span manner the section might lead you to imagine. 1882Mrs. J. H. Riddell Daisies & Butterc. I. 121 This spick and span old house. 1888W. E. Norris Rogue xxxi, A spick-and-span victoria, with a lady seated in it.
B. n. That which is quite new or particularly trim and smart.
1758H. Walpole Let. to H. S. Conway 21 July, I repeat what has been printed in every newspaper of the week, and then finish with one paragraph of spick and span. 1888B. W. Richardson Son of Star III. iii. 41 A Jewish legion of the spick and span of Jewish youth.
C. adv. In a spick and span manner.
1815Lamb Let. to Manning in Final Mem. x. 99 Mary reserves a portion of your silk..to make up spick and span into a bran-new gown. 1821Blackw. Mag. IX. 134 Caparison'd all spick and span.
Hence spick-and-spanness.
1911Mrs. H. Ward Case of Richard Meynell ii. viii. 174 [He] was himself a model of spick-and-span-ness. 1931Times Lit. Suppl. 21 May 407/1 The ancient houses..had a touch of mysterious romance that the bright spick-and-spanness of the new architecture misses. 1975New Yorker 28 Apr. 52/2 A life that, in spite of its inferior neatness and spick-and-spanness, was essentially more serious and finer than our own. |