- 1《巴比特》；巴比特式的人（只顧生意與面子、眼界很窄的生意人）
Babbitt is first a book (1922) by the American writer Sinclair Lewis, about a businessman called George Babbitt who lives in a small US town. He thinks about his property business, his clubs, and his place among the neighbours; he is not really interested in art, ideas, or other people’s inner lives. Readers found him comfortable, proud, and empty — boring in a well-dressed way. From the book, Babbitt became a name for that kind of man: respectable, keen on money and standing, narrow in feeling. The word is literary and a little old now. Older readers of American novels still use it; younger students may never have heard it. You will usually see a capital B, because it began as a surname. Though actually, English also has another technical word babbitt (a soft metal used in engines), from an inventor called Isaac Babbitt; that is a different word, not this character.
組成From the surname of George Babbitt, the businessman in Sinclair Lewis’s novel Babbitt (1922). The use for a type of person grew from that character.
同家族的字
- Babbittrythe way of life of a Babbitt: comfortable, narrow, and proud of being ordinary
原始詞典資料7 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Babbittname詞源 1/ˈbæbɪt/
- 1
A surname.
- 2
A city in Saint Louis County, Minnesota, United States.
Babbittnoun詞源 2/ˈbæbɪt/
- 1
datedA person who subscribes complacently to materialistic middle-class ideals.
- A Babbitt met a Bromide on the avenue one day. They held a conversation in their own peculiar way.
- One speaks of a babbitt habit, a babbitt era. Nothing is more true. America recognized itself in Babbitt, it demurred, but it also admired.
babbittverb詞源 1/ˈbæbɪt/
- 1
To line (something) with babbitt metal to reduce friction.
- The main bearings were babbitted and line-bored.
- The caps for these journal-boxes or bearings may be Babbited by this same jig, and they would, of course, exactly conform to the other portions of the bearings in the frame. […] This drilling jig is a negative of the interior of the frame. It has two sets of bearings, c d and e f, which are at right angles to each other, and which set in the longitudinal and transverse bearings that have been made and "Babbited" in the cast frame, and thus steady and hold it.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。