| 单词 | dickens |
| 释义 | dickens (once / 7870 pages) n Use the noun dickens for emphasis, or to express surprise — for example, you might ask, "What the dickens is this goat doing in the kitchen?" The old-fashioned dickens is a gentle and inoffensive replacement for a profanity. Instead of shocking your grandmother by cursing, you can instead say, "After shoveling all that snow, my back hurts like the dickens." This exclamation has been around since the late 1500's, when it became a substitute for devil, but no one's sure exactly why dickens was used. It may be from the last name Dickens, though it definitely pre-dates the writer Charles Dickens. WORD FAMILYdickens: dickenses USAGE EXAMPLES“I thought, ‘What in the dickens is that?’ ” he said in his video account. Washington Post(Dec 05, 2016) “Sometimes I have a dickens of a time keeping track of them,” she says. Washington Times(Jul 05, 2016) “You can plant it early in the spring, and it’s tough as the dickens.” The Guardian(Jun 12, 2016) n a word used in exclamations of confusion the dickens you say Syn|Hyper deuce, devil exclaiming, exclamation an abrupt excited utterance Dickens (once / 1442 pages) n WORD FAMILY Dickens: Dickenses, Dickensian USAGE EXAMPLESHe notes that this kind of conjuring is widespread among novelists, and cites examples including Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, and Hilary Mantel. The New Yorker(Jan 01, 2017) Fifty years was long enough, I suppose, to put off reading Charles Dickens again. The New Yorker(Dec 28, 2016) Bennett Miller follows Foxcatcher, the intense story of a deeply creepy and disturbed billionaire wrestling fan who turns murderer with … a cheery Dickens Yuletide classic. The Guardian(Dec 26, 2016) n English writer whose novels depicted and criticized social injustice (1812-1870) Syn|Exp Charles Dickens, Charles John Huffam Dickens author, writer writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay) |
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