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Bow-wow is a small-child word for a dog. Grown-ups say it to babies and toddlers, and little children say it back, the way they might say for a cow. It starts as the sound people think a dog makes — bow-wow, like 汪汪 — and then that sound becomes a name for the animal itself. You will see it in picture books, nursery rhymes, and baby talk. It is warm and silly on purpose. A ten-year-old would not call a real dog a bow-wow except as a joke, and you would not use it in a serious sentence about animals. There is nothing “wrong” with it; it just belongs to a very young room.
汪汪(兒語,指狗)
組成It does not split into smaller meaning-pieces. It is onomatopoeic: a spelling of the sound a dog is supposed to make, then used as the child’s name for the dog.
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法,原文照列,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。
bow-wowintj
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Representing the sound of a dog barking.
- Harke, harke, bowgh wawgh: the watch-Dogges barke, bowgh-wawgh.
- She […] hath ſtiled him with an immortall penne, the bawewawe of ſchollars, the tutt of gentlemen, the tee-heegh of gentlewomen, the phy of citizens, the blurt of Courtiers, the poogh of good letters, the faph of good manners, and the whoop-hooe of good boyes in London ſtreetes.
bow-wownoun
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The sound of a dog barking.
- And a chorus of quadruped, white and brown, / Bark’d affirmative, “gone to town,” / With affable bursts of French bow-wow; / (As part of the family they knew how!)
- The pack commenced to work back and forth along the ridge. We neared a hollow where Prince barked eagerly. Curley answered, and likewise Queen. Mux’s short, angry bow-wow showed that he was in line.
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A dog.
- Daddy wouldn't buy me a bow wow! bow wow! / Daddy wouldn't buy me a bow wow! bow wow, / I've got a little cat, / And I'm very fond of that, / But I'd rather have a bow wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
- 1902, Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Kermit Roosevelt dated 13 October, 1902, in Joseph Bucklin Bishop (editor), Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children, New York: Scribner, 1919, p. 36, Gem is really a very nice small bow-wow, but Mother found that in this case possession was less attractive than pursuit.
bow-wowverb
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To make the sound of a dog, to bark, to bow-wow
bow-wowadj
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datedinformalGrandiose.
- Lord Pembroke said once to me at Wilton, with a happy pleasantry, and some truth, that “Dr. Johnson’s sayings would not appear so extraordinary were it not for his bow-wow way;” but I admit the truth of this only on some occasions.
- 1826, Walter Scott, Diary entry for 14 March, 1826, in The Complete Works of Sir Walter Scott; with a Biography, New York: Conner & Cooke, 1833, Volume 7, Chapter 68, p. 475, Miss Austen […] had a talent for describing the involvements, and feelings, and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me.
資料來源:英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary(CC BY-SA 4.0)。 原文照列,未經改寫。