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tailor-made的词源解释,tailor-made来源

tailor-made(adj.)

by 1830 in the figurative sense of "made or shaped to suit" a person or situation, usually slighting.

If we can in any way persuade the young ladies, that the highest trait of beauty they can possess, is a countenance of independence and sufficiency to themselves; ... smirking dandies, shop window loiterers, little puny, tailor-made, essenced time killers, will disappear as insects in summer are drowned in honey. [Greenfield, Mass., Gazette, May 11, 1830]

Perhaps on the contemporary notion of a tailor as "one who makes outer garments to order," as opposed to a clothier, who makes them for sale ready-made. But the expression may owe something to Shakespeare:

Kent. ... You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee.
Corn. Thou art a strange fellow: a tailor make a man?
Kent. Ay, a tailor, sir: a stone cutter, or a painter, could not have made him so ill, though they had been but two hours at the trade.
["King Lear"]

The later literal sense (by 1873) was "heavy and plain, with attention to exact fit and with little ornamentation," as of women's garments made by a tailor rather than a dress-maker.

该词起源时间:1830年