| 释义 |
▪ I. dead beat, ˈdead-ˈbeat, n.1 (a.) Watch- and Clock-making, etc.
[dead a. 24 b.]
A beat or stroke which stops ‘dead’ without recoil. Usually attrib. or adj., as in dead-beat escapement.
1768tr. P. Le Roy's Attempts finding Longitude 29 The dead beat is made upon a part that is unconcerned with the regulator. 1874Knight Dict. Mech., Dead-beat Escapement. This..was invented by Graham about 1700. 1881Maxwell Electr. & Magn. II. 351 Galvanometers, in which the resistance is so great that the motion is of this kind, are called dead-beat galvanometers. 1882J. Milne in Nature XXVI. 628 Pendulums, so far controlled by friction as to be ‘dead-beat’. 1927Motor Boat 9 Sept. 226/3 The..Dead Beat compass..returns after being displaced from its equilibrium position by one direct movement to the north pointing position. 1960E. L. Delmar-Morgan Cruising Yacht Equipt. ii. 33 A light, dry card compass... The liquid-filled ‘dead-beat’ instrument has now taken its place.
▪ II. dead beat, ˈdead-ˈbeat, ppl. a. (n.2)
[dead adv. 1, 2.]
A. adj. (or pa. pple.) Completely ‘beat’, utterly exhausted. colloq.
1821P. Egan Tom & Jerry (1890) 34 So dead-beat, as to be compelled to cry for quarter. 1836Hook G. Gurney I. 218, I never was so dead beat in my life. 1887Sir R. H. Roberts In the Shires ii. 30 His horse lay dead beat in a ditch beside him.
B. n. slang (orig. U.S.). A worthless idler who sponges on his friends; a sponger, loafer; also (orig. Austral.), a man down on his luck. Also attrib. Cf. beat n.1 16.
1863Cornhill Mag. Jan. 94 ‘Beau’ Hickman [was] a professional pensioner, or, in the elegant phraseology of the place ‘a deadbeat’. 1875Chicago Tribune 13 Oct. 4/4 To go on a dead-beat spree. 1877Black Green Past. xli. (1878) 325 A system of local government controlled by 30,000 bummers, loafers, and dead-beats. 1882B. Harte Flip ii, Every tramp and dead-beat you've met. 1898Morris Austral Eng. 115/2 Deadbeat. In Australia, it means a man ‘down on his luck’, ‘stone-broke’, beaten by fortune. 1902W. Satchell Land of Lost iii. 18 This is the stranding-ground of the dead-beats of the world. 1909Wodehouse Mike liv. 304 The Wrykyn team that summer was about the most hopeless gang of dead-beats that had ever made an exhibition of itself on the school grounds. 1912E. Pugh Harry the Cockney xi. 114 He was a full private..attached to London's vast army of dead-beats..these miserable stricken creatures. 1958Spectator 16 May 633/1 A company of British soldiers arrives in trucks, led by a deadbeat Temporary Major. 1959‘J. Welcome’ Stop at Nothing vi. 107 You don't want help from an old dead-beat like me. 1971Guardian 18 Jan. 8/2 He didn't write me off as ‘Oh, that dead-beat’ when my name was mentioned.
▸ deadbeat dad n. colloq. (orig. and chiefly U.S.) a father who lives apart from his children and does not support them financially; (more generally) any neglectful father.
1983U.S. News & World Rep. (Nexis) 21 Mar. 70 So serious is the problem that Congress and state legislatures are seeking new ways to track down *deadbeat dads and make them pay. 1993Village Voice (N.Y.) 20 Apr. 13/4 Lockheed had begun chasing child support business, trying to win deadbeat-dad collection contracts from state and local governments. 1998Independent 27 Apr. 15 Tony Blair wants to offer leadership on the future of men. He has read the endless stories vilifying us as problems (criminals, dead-beat dads, lads behaving badly). 2000J. Sutherland Henry V, War Criminal? 4 If Cleopatra is a neglectful mother, he [sc. Antony] seems a totally uncaring father, a deadbeat dad. |