| 释义 |
V-sign
Also V sign.
[f. V = Victory: see V 5 b.]
1. a. The letter V used as a written symbol of victory during the war of 1939–45. b. The Morse Code representation of this letter or the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which have the same rhythm. Also transf.
1941W. S. Churchill Unrelenting Struggle (1942) 198 The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories, and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny. 1959Listener 24 Sept. 489/2 The start of the ‘V-sign’ by Victor de Lavelaye of the Belgian Section [of the B.B.C.] in July 1941. 1972Times 26 Sept. 4/8 The old V-sign, first used for the Belgian service in 1941, was a low-frequency signal. 1978L. Thomas Ormerod's Landing v. 95 There came a V-sign knock on the street door.
2. a. = victory sign s.v. victory n. 5. b. A similar gesture made with the back of the hand outwards as an obscene gesture of contempt (see also quots. 1948, 1973).
a.1942H. Nicolson Diary 23 Apr. (1967) 224 Winston..gives the V-sign to an audience which does not greet him with any tumultuous applause. 1943A. Moorehead End in Africa xiv. 148 They gave the V sign, they shouted and waved flags, the girls kissed the soldiers and the men ran out with bottles of wine and fruit.
b.1948Partridge Dict. Forces' Slang 202 V-sign, the first and middle fingers uplifted in the form of the letter V, for victory. When the hand making the sign was jerked upwards, it was a sign of recognition between two acquaintances passing on a road, or of complete disagreement with the statements or actions of another, adequately replacing a vulgar monosyllable of the same significance. 1959Spectator 4 Sept. 297/2 Congreve's Double Dealer is a sex-play... To his immediate predecessors the dirty joke was still a political gesture, a deliberately ambiguous V-sign which semaphored both political and marital freedom. 1973Daily Tel. 29 Nov. 3/8 Two ‘louts’..taunted him outside his home by shouting obscenities and making V-signs. 1981B. Hines Looks & Smiles 36 They turned round and gave him the V-sign generously with both hands..the gatekeeper hurried inside his office and slammed the door. |
