| 释义 |
white-collar, n. and a. orig. U.S.
A. n.
a. (As two words.) A white collar regarded as characteristic of a man engaged in non-manual work.
1919U. Sinclair Brass Check xiii. 78 It is a fact with which every union workingman is familiar, that his most bitter despisers are the petty underlings of the business world, the poor office-clerks..who, because they are allowed to wear a white collar.., regard themselves as members of the capitalist class. 1976M. Hinxman End of Good Woman i. 9 Tom emigrated to Canada. Dick put on a white collar and became a bank clerk.
b. A person engaged in non-manual work.
1930A. P. Herbert Water Gipsies iv. 39 That family over there..come here every Thursday of their lives for a little family reunion, and white collars, too, all of them. 1938W. Smitter F.O.B. Detroit 32 It wasn't long before the white-collars up front began taking notice of what was going on on the floor. 1954E. Pangborn Mirror for Observers (1955) i. i. 19 A residential backwater for factory workers, white-collars, transients. 1962‘K. Orvis’ Damned & Destroyed i. 12 A pair of white-collars from a near-by St. James Street brokerage office pounded the bar for fresh drinks. 1971W. J. Burley Guilt Edged i. 5 [The] passenger ferry..had made only two return trips, one for the workers at seven-thirty and one for the white-collars at eight-thirty.
B. adj.
a. Of a person: engaged in non-manual, esp. clerical, work.
1921Ladies' Home Jrnl. May 98/4 Urban chain restaurants have accustomed white-collar boys and girls to tasty viands, albeit in limited amounts. 1924W. McDougall Ethics & Some Mod. World Probl. iv. 125 The strata of brain-workers made up the white-collar class or middle classes. 1937Atlantic Monthly Dec. 750/1 Proletarian literature..has been accompanied by books on the white-collar worker, the storekeeper..the scientist, and the millionnaire in situations equally disastrous or degrading. 1948Chicago Tribune 3 Apr. ii. 1/4 The modern white collar girl wants a job which not only offers opportunities but advances as well. 1959[see blue-collar s.v. blue a. 13]. 1969Times 30 Apr. 26/6 The first strike action by manual workers against the British Steel Corporation's new policy of white collar union recognition broke out yesterday. 1982D. Gorham Victorian Girl ii. 29 Teachers and nurses..were of less importance numerically than [female] ‘white collar’ workers.
b. Of work or an occupation: not manual or industrial; spec. clerical.
1926Amer. Speech II. 96/2 The uneducated and uneducable found a new field opening to them, and rushed in, to take advantage of the ‘white-collar’ work. 1937‘G. Orwell’ Road to Wigan Pier xi. 205 The typical Socialist..is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik..or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-collar job. 1962Auden Dyer's Hand (1963) 123 He has a dingy white-collar job. 1979T. Benn Arguments for Socialism i. 41 The definition of a worker is extended to include all wage and salary earners and paves the way for the extension of trade unionism into the realms of clerical white collar, scientific and technical and managerial work.
c. (See quot. 1937.) U.S.
1932[see dirt farmer s.v. dirt n. 7 d]. 1937Amer. Speech XII. 105 The adjectives suitcase and bonanza and whitecollar are applied in recently developed wheat-farming areas to large owner-farmers who live outside the community and appear during the sowing and harvesting seasons.
d. Applied to a person who takes advantage of the special knowledge or responsibility of his position to commit non-violent, often financial, crimes; also to the crime itself.
[1932E. H. Sutherland in Publ. Amer. Sociol. Soc. Aug. 60 The financial crimes of the white-collar classes.] 1934― Princ. Criminol. ii. 32 These white-collar criminaloids..are by far the most dangerous to society..from the point of view of effects on private property and social institutions. 1964M. Argyle Psychol. & Social Probl. v. 65 Older middle-class people are tempted to commit offences other than theft or violence, and the various kinds of ‘white collar crime’ are hard to detect—income-tax avoidance, bogus expense claims and complex business illegalities. 1977Wandsworth Borough News 7 Oct. 5/3 Dangerous drivers and white-collar criminals are far more likely to receive lenient treatment than the petty habitual thief. 1984Daily Tel. 12 Nov. 20/2 White-collar crime like fraud is..on the increase.., and the computer has opened enormous vistas of extra opportunity. |
