shanks' mare

名词 n.
中文释义

英文释义

名词 n.
  1. One's own feet used for walking. US,countable,idiomatic,uncountable
    — A public exhibition of the velocipede [a predecessor of the bicycle] ... will never come into general use in competition with Shank's mare.

词形变化

shanks' mares plural shanks's mare alternative shank's mare alternative shanks mare alternative

词源

Believed to be Scottish in origin and derives from shanks' nag (shanks-naig 1774), referring to the use of shank to refer to the part of the human leg between the knee and ankle. One theory cites "shank's mare" derived from a horse-drawn lawn mower, manufactured by Shanks & Company Ltd. (founded 1853) which required that the human operator walk behind the device to guide the horse; however, references to the phrase in Scottish literature pre-date the existence of the Shanks lawn mower.
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