| 词组 | defenestrate |
| 释义 | defenestrate Defenestration has been a mode of political expression for centuries, and a member of the Harper 1975, 1985 usage panel wondered if there shouldn't be a verb defenestrate to go along with it. Almost two thirds of the panel thought there ought to be. Well, there is. It is a recent verb for which our earliest citation is figurative. In subsequent use it has been both literal and figurative. • Now he had to have somebody to contrast him with unfavorably—an Articulate Englishman. Such a person is a contradiction in popular-fiction terms, like a scrutable Oriental. To produce one, Green had to defenestrate all the traits by which a whodunit reader identifies an Englishman —A. J. Liebling, New Yorker, 7 Apr. 1956 • In a California college, I saw books thrown through a window.... Shouting and burning, defenestrating the memory of mankind, they feel at least they are doing something, not just sitting on their butts — Anthony Burgess, American Scholar, Autumn 1969 • If you get your dates wrong and defenestrate yourself before the waiting period has expired, the most your beneficiaries will receive is a refund of the premiums you've paid —John Erno Russell, Moneysworth, 21 July 1975 • Perhaps the chief distinction of the picture is the number of things getting defenestrated in it: an overnight bag, a book, some manuscript pages, an attaché case —John Simon, New York, 8 Dec. 1975 • He says that this used to make his colleagues rather cross, but that they have got used to it over the years. I am amazed that they have not defenestrated him —Howard 1980 Our evidence indicates that usage of this back-formation is on the increase, but it is still not an especially common word. It has been in use for more than thirty years, and you can feel safe in using it if you need it. |
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