英语词汇dark horse的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

dark horse. A wonderful story is told about a swift, coal- black horse named Dusky Pete who belonged to Tennessean Sam Flyn. Sam made an easy living riding his horse from town to town and entering him in local races, which Dusty Pete, who looked like a lame plug, always won handily, Sam collecting his bets and going on to his next conquest. But the story is fable as far as scholars are concerned. Dark horse was first recorded in England, not America, in about 1830. Benjamin Disraeli used it in his The Young Duke (1831) as a racing term indicating more than the color of the horse: “A dark horse, which had nev- er been thought of, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.” Given Disraeli’s widespread popularity as a novelist and public figure, it wasn’t very long before the term was intro- duced in American politics to describe a candidate about whom little is known or who wins unexpectedly. The Democratic Convention of 1844 produced the first political dark horse in James Polk, who went on to become president, and the term was in wide use by 1865.

词汇	dark horse
词源	dark horse. A wonderful story is told about a swift, coal- black horse named Dusky Pete who belonged to Tennessean Sam Flyn. Sam made an easy living riding his horse from town to town and entering him in local races, which Dusty Pete, who looked like a lame plug, always won handily, Sam collecting his bets and going on to his next conquest. But the story is fable as far as scholars are concerned. Dark horse was first recorded in England, not America, in about 1830. Benjamin Disraeli used it in his The Young Duke (1831) as a racing term indicating more than the color of the horse: “A dark horse, which had nev- er been thought of, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.” Given Disraeli’s widespread popularity as a novelist and public figure, it wasn’t very long before the term was intro- duced in American politics to describe a candidate about whom little is known or who wins unexpectedly. The Democratic Convention of 1844 produced the first political dark horse in James Polk, who went on to become president, and the term was in wide use by 1865.
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