shiralee

n. <澳俚>(步行旅人的)行囊

词形变化

shiralees 复数 shiralees

别名

shirallee

释义与例句

n.
  1. 1.

    Burden; load.

  2. 2.

    Burden; load.

    A type of swag that when rolled up resembles a leg of mutton, carried over the shoulder, usually with another load on the chest to balance it.

    澳大利亚 非正式 过时

    2006, Pip Wilson, Faces in the Street: Louisa and Henry Lawson and the Castlereagh Street Push, page 8, “Nothin′. A prickly gecko, mate. He dropped off your shiralee.”

词源

First attested in print 1892. Later popularised through its use in the title of D'Arcy Niland′s 1955 novel The Shiralee (and two film adaptations, in 1957 and 1987)). Its meaning is no longer well known. Sometimes claimed to be from an (unidentified) Australian Aboriginal language. Alternatively, an anglicisation of Irish tiarálaí (“itinerant roustabout”) which came to be applied to his swag or matilda, and later (inspired by Niland's novel) to mean not only a physical burden but also a psychological one.

来源：wiktionary