| 释义 |
spoiler|ˈspɔɪlə(r)|
[f. spoil v.1 + -er.]
1. a. One who pillages, plunders, or robs; a ravager, spoliator, despoiler.
1535Coverdale 2 Kings xvii. 20 Therfore dyd y⊇ Lorde cast awaye all y⊇ sede of Israel,..and delyuered them in to the handes of the spoylers. 1598Barret Theor. Warres i. ii. 11 Many disorders doe happen by the disorder of couetous spoilers. 1611Bible Isaiah xxi. 2 The treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. 1680Otway Orphan iv. vii, A cruel Spoiler came, Cropt this fair Rose, and rifled all it's Sweetness. 1760–72H. Brooke Fool of Qual. (1809) III. 65 One tenth for the use of the society.., and the other nine for the benefit of the spoilers. 1790Burke Fr. Rev. Sel. Wks. 1898 II. 192 Can any philosophic spoiler undertake to demonstrate..the comparative evil of having a..portion of landed property. 1844H. H. Wilson Brit. India II. 81 Driving them into the interior,..leaving their fields and homes to the spoiler. 1877A. B. Edwards Up Nile vii. 181 One can easily imagine how these spoilers sacked and ravaged all before them.
fig.1821Lamb Elia i. My Relations, I hate people who meet Time half-way. I am for no compromise with that inevitable spoiler. 1824Praed Athens 199 If the flush of youth..Could bid the spoiler turn his scythe away, Or snatch one flower from darkness and decay.
b. Said of animals, insects, etc.
1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) IV. 225 One of them stands centinel upon a tree, while the rest are plundering..: in the mean time, the rest of the spoilers pursue their work with great silence and assiduity. 1779Cowper Pine-apple & Bee 5 On eager wing the spoiler came, And search'd for crannies in the frame.
2. a. One who or that which spoils, destroys, injures, mars, etc.
1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. 35 Chyche..is a great spoyler of land. 1648Hexham ii, Brodder,..a Marrer, or a Spoiler of worke. 1694Motteux Rabelais v. (1737) 215 Wheadling Gablers,..Spoilers of Paper. 1733W. Ellis Chiltern & Vale Farm. 297 Camock..is a greater Spoiler of the Corn. 1766Goldsm. Vic. W. x, The sun was dreaded as an enemy to the skin without doors, and the fire as a spoiler of the complexion within. 1900Westm. Gaz. 28 Nov. 2/1 The sun is a spoiler of intrinsic colour.
b. Boxing. An inferior fighter who sets out to disrupt his opponent's style.
1948Sun (Baltimore) 29 June 15/2 Walcot is only a timid defensive heavyweight to whom the words ‘offense’ and ‘attack’ are abhorrent. In the language of the ring he is known as a ‘spoiler’, the type of fighter who can make an opponent look bad but who can never look good himself. 1959Times 14 Oct. 16/5 Carroll, a ‘spoiler’ when at close quarters, has a good left jab.
c. U.S. One who mars the chance of victory for an opponent, while not being a potential winner. Also, applied to a thing. Esp. in Sport and Pol.
1950Sun (Baltimore) 9 June 20/4 In meeting San Francisco here..the Colts will get a crack at their biggest ‘spoiler’ of the past two seasons. 1965N.Y. Times 1 Nov. 40 It seems clear that William Buckley will poll enough votes to be a ‘spoiler’, though it is not yet certain for whom. 1967Connable & Silberfarb Tigers of Tammany iv. 117 Van Buren was the ‘spoiler’ in a three-way race. 1968N.Y. Times 25 Jan. 19 Mr. Javits..described the six-year-old Conservative party as ‘a faction’ that had been set up as ‘a spoiler’ party. 1971Ibid. 22 Aug. iv. 3/4 What he [sc. George Wallace] is doing these days is laying the premise for another ‘spoiler’ campaign in 1972. 1976J. V. O'Brien William O'Brien viii. 194 It was felt that the Protestant vote had gone not to O'Brien but to the spoiler candidate and ex-Lord Mayor. 1979N.Y. Post 20 Aug. 44 It looks like we're out of it now, so we'll just have to be spoilers from here on. Ibid. 46, I suppose you can't have a ‘spoiler’ in soccer. 1980Washington Post 11 Sept. 1/1 Not that Anderson is yet seen as a serious challenger for the presidency... But he is now perceived as a genuine factor in the presidential election, a certified political spoiler.
3. a. Aeronaut. A flap or the like that can be made to project from the upper surface of an aircraft wing to break up a smooth air-flow and so increase drag.
1928de Port & Borden Rep. U.S. Air Corps Materiel Div. Airplane Branch No. 2878. 2 The ‘spoiler’ or ‘lift destroyer’ described in this report causes a decrease in lift by a ‘burbling’ action. 1932Rep. U.S. Nat. Advisory Comm. for Aeronautics No. 439. 3/1 When ailerons and spoilers are used together the full effect of both is not obtained if the spoilers are located directly in front of the ailerons. 1947A. C. Douglas Gliding & Advanced Soaring iii. 84 When the spoilers are raised a certain amount of the lift of the wing is destroyed and the machine must glide at a steeper angle in order to keep the speed constant. 1978R. Jansson News Caper xiii. 115 Thackaray trimmed once more, and briefly pulled on the spoilers to reduce our air speed.
b. A structure on a motor vehicle intended to reduce lift and so increase the pressure on the wheels at high speed; also, one located so as to reduce the drag caused by components on the underside of a car.
1963Times 8 Mar. 3/7 A special feature..is the tail, which is sharply cut-back in Ferrari style, the roof sweeping down to end in a ‘spoiler’ or raised lip. This treatment eliminates turbulence and wind drag by killing low-pressure over the tail, and keeping weights on the rear wheels at high speed. 1965Observer 10 Oct. 5/1 It has retractable spoilers which can be pushed up to increase high-speed stability. 1974L. Deighton Spy Story i. 10 His car..was..all dressed up in black vinyl, Lamborghini-style rear-window slats, and even a spoiler. 1979Time 2 Apr. 6 (Advt.), The front spoiler is there to give you increased tyre adhesion at high speeds.
Add:[2.] d. Sound Recording. An electronic device incorporated into a piece of recording equipment in order to prevent unauthorized recording, esp. of a compact disc by a digital audio tape deck; also (in full spoiler signal), an electronic signal, inaudible during normal listening, which ruins the recording of any record or soundtrack into which it is incorporated.
1979New Scientist 17 May 522/2 The BPI's chimera is a spoiler signal, buried in the original recording... Spoilers can be made to perform under laboratory conditions, but in practice they are a dead duck. They can, for instance, easily be defeated by a simple anti-spoiler circuit. 1981Ibid. 5 Nov. 359/2 As spoilers and levies are contradictory (one prevents taping while the other taxes it), the government is unlikely to change its mind on a levy while such confusion exists. 1986Times 3 Sept. 23/3 The..music industry..wants legislation requiring all dat machines to carry an anti-copying device called a spoiler so that dat cannot pirate copyright material. 1988Which? July 345/3 CBS recently tried to introduce a ‘spoiler’ system called Copycode. This, it was claimed, would prevent any CD/DAT recording.
Add:[2.] e. Journalism. A news story or other newspaper item published to spoil the impact of and divert attention from a related item published elsewhere. Also used transf. in other news media, or to denote an event which is intended to generate news coverage with a similarly distracting effect.
1985Guardian 20 May 7/8 What we have there is a classic Fleet Street spoiling operation aimed at sinking the Bogdanovitch story... The spoiler is designed to neutralise the enemy's razzmatazz by running the same story, preferably bigger, better and sooner. 1988Sunday Times 17 Apr. c6/4 Not to be outdone, the Mail has run a daily ‘spoiler’, unprecedented in its length, matching each four-page pull-out in Today with its own centre-page spreads: ‘Michael Jackson, Uncensored’. 1989Daily Tel. 30 Dec. (Weekend Suppl.) p. v/1 The speech made the front pages of the Daily Mail, The Times and The Daily Telegraph... The Independent..treated it as a spoiler for Paddy Ashdown's ‘green’ speech to his party conference a couple of days later.
▸ colloq. (orig. U.S.). A description of a significant plot point or other aspect of a movie, book, etc., which if previously known may spoil a person's first experience of the work. Esp. in written contexts, warning the reader of an impending revelation of this type.
1981SF-Lovers Digest V3 {hash}120 in fa.sf-lovers (Usenet newsgroup) 13 May Spoiler..Spoiler..Spoiler... The island of the High-tech civilization is Krakatoa. 1993E. S. Raymond New Hacker's Dict. (ed. 2) 392 Spoiler, a remark which reveals important plot elements from books or movies. 1998Ottawa Citizen (Nexis) 24 June c1, 117 TV episodes have aired so far... So here's a spoiler alert. If you don't want to know.., read no further. 2001Premiere Feb. 45/1 It [sc. this article] contains several plot ‘spoilers’ and should not be read until after you have seen the movie. |
