| 单词 | chinese water torture |
| 释义 | > as lemmasChinese water torture Chinese water torture n. †(a) torture in which the victim is forced to ingest dangerous quantities of water (in quot. 1892 in figurative use) (obsolete); (b) torture in which the victim is subjected to the incessant dripping of water on one part of the body, esp. the head; (now chiefly figurative) an experience which is increasingly or relentlessly annoying, uncomfortable, etc. [The reasons for the use of Chinese in this compound are unclear; the first descriptions of water torture in English (in sense (a)) refer to an incident between the Dutch and the English in the Moluccas (see e.g. quots. 1632 and 1744 for water torture n. at water n. Compounds 7). ΚΠ 1892 Overland Monthly July 82/1 For three long months he drank from the Pierian spring, and then he stopped,..having endured until he felt like a victim of the Chinese water torture. 1916 W. B. Pillsbury Fund. Psychol. v. 177 The Chinese water torture, in which drops of water are permitted to fall for a long time upon the same point until the successive slight stimuli give rise to an unbearable pain. 1953 Economist 21 Mar. 805/1 A series of proposals, submitted over a week, in what the Democrats called a kind of ‘Chinese water torture’. 1976 Times 30 Aug. 8/5 Any individual..is worn down by the Chinese water torture of daily stress. 2013 Cricketer Nov. 82/1 It was Chinese water torture. He was at you the whole time. < as lemmas |
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