| 词组 | droves |
| 释义 | droves Drove is an old collective noun for a herd of animals. It has been used figuratively for upwards of nine centuries. By Defoe's time, it was being used in the plural as a collective, like throngs and crowds, to indicate a great number. This use is still current: • Now tourists arrive in such droves that the best you can do is get into step with the stampede —David Butwin, Saturday Rev., 5 Feb. 1972 • ... produced droves of famously beautiful women —William Styron, This Quiet Dust and Other Writings, 1982 • Everyone who can afford it wants to live down-town They're coming in droves —Jeanne Wayling, quoted in Audubon Mag., November 1982 • Today, fan letters ... come to her in droves — Luanda Franks, Saturday Rev., January 1981 Since the word was in common use to describe large numbers of people flocking to attend an event, some facetious writer decided that it might be cleverly used to express the opposite notion. We don't know whose idea this was, but it has certainly caught on: • ... not only stifled the members' interest, but which ... sent them away in droves —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, 1952 • ... militant anti-Communists stay away in droves —Frank Gorrell, New Republic, 14 June 1954 • ... foolish moviegoers stayed away from the Music Hall in droves —Judith Crist, New York, 24 July 1972 • ... consumers stayed away from dealers' showrooms in droves —Wall Street Jour., 3 Feb. 1976 • ... the networks spent more lavishly than ever to televise it. Nonetheless, television viewers stayed away in droves —Neil Hickey, TV Guide, 1 Aug. 1980 Copperud 1980 thinks that "stayed away in droves" is about the only use of droves, but it is not; according to our citations it is not even the most common use. He also thinks that it is a cliché, an opinion from which it is hard to dissent. |
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