| 释义 |
penny farthing, a. and n.
A. adj. Ineffective; insignificant.
1887Kipling Plain Tales from Hills (1888) 78 It was pleasant to watch her unhappiness, and the penny⁓farthing attempts she made to hide it. 1967S. Beckett Eh Joe 17 You know that penny farthing hell you call your mind. a1974R. Crossman Diaries (1976) II. 60 Harold Wilson's penny-farthing report on the scandals of Party organization had come out long before the 1959 election. 1977J. Wainwright Day of Peppercorn Kill 68, I..kicked hell out of every penny-farthing crook I could lay my hands on.
B. n. An early form of bicycle having a large front wheel and a small rear one. Also attrib.
This kind of bicycle was introduced in the 1860s and was known by various names, including ordinary (see ordinary n. 17 b), bone-shaker (see bone n. 17) for the wooden-wheeled machine, and bicycle for the wire-spoke machine. The name penny farthing does not seem to have been used until the 1920s, by which time this type of bicycle was obsolete.
1927Ld. Birkenhead in Sunday Express 6 Nov. 11/6, I once rode more or less continuously on a high bicycle (called a ‘penny farthing’) from my native town of Birkenhead to Edinburgh. 1932G. M. Boumphrey Story of Wheel xxiv. 89 These improvements had turned the bone-shaker into what was sometimes called the ‘penny⁓farthing’. 1963Times 20 May 11/1 To do without it would be like giving up our helicopters and going back to penny-farthings. 1976Country Life 27 May 1385/1 Nostalgia for a world..of Norfolk jackets, muttonchop whiskers, penny-farthing bicycles. |
