| 词汇 | kissing bug |
| 词源 | kissing bug. There are several species of venomous blood- sucking Hemiptera of the family Reduviidae called kissing bugs, these assassin bugs inflicting sharp bites on the lips that cause painful sores. There was, in fact, a great kissing-bug scare for two or three months in the U.S. in 1899, with many people bit- ten by such bugs while they slept. The insect seems to have in- spired the punning kissing bug for a person who kisses a lot. This is an American expression, not Canadian as Partridge claims, first recorded in the late 1890s, and perhaps first applied to na- val hero Richmond “Kissing Bug” Hobson, who was showered with kisses by so many women that his name, in the form of hobsonize, took on the meaning “to kiss.” Hobson, however, was always the kissee (first recorded in England in 1827), not the kisser. See chagas’ disease. |
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