| 词组 | heap, heaps |
| 释义 | heap, heaps Heap has been used to mean "a great deal" since the 16th century. This sense may have developed from the use of heap to mean "a multitude; a crowd," which dates back to the period of Old English. The "great deal" sense was not recorded by either Samuel Johnson or Noah Webster, and it seems not to have come into widespread written use until fairly recently. It was first entered in a Merriam-Webster dictionary in 1864, when it was described as "low or humorous." Usage commentators in the 20th century have generally regarded it as a colloquialism. Our written evidence for it is considerable, and not all of it is notably informal, but it does confirm that this sense of heap is most at home in writing that has a conversational tone: • Then Sankey roped me in to do a heap of things for him —Harold J. Laski, letter, 6 Aug. 1931 • It took a heap of work to settle the wilderness — Meridel Le Sueur, North Star Country, 1945 • ... means the National League West is in a heap of trouble —Henry Hecht, Sports Illustrated, 11 June 1984 The plural heaps in this sense has much the same quality: • There are heaps of things in the world which I should like to see changed —T. S. Eliot, "A Dialogue on Dramatic Poetry," in Selected Essays, 1932 • ... you can landscape with heaps of annuals while these other things get going —Millicent Taylor, Christian Science Monitor, 9 Apr. 1971 There is also the adverbial phrase a heap, which is used to mean "much" or "very much." Its occurrence in writing is limited primarily to representations of rustic speech: • "Hit pleasures me a heap to see you," John said — Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Jingling in the Wind, 1928 • Every time we see her she screams something like, "There's a heap worse things than death let me tell you...." —Flannery O'Connor, letter, 27 Apr. 1963 |
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