| 词源 |
parting shot. The Parthian soldiers of antiquity were famed as deadly mounted archers. These mail-clad horsemen would ride furiously to the attack, pour a shower of arrows on their enemies and then evade any closer action by rapid flight, with- drawing according to plan and firing their shafts backwards from their horses while galloping away. Such tactics made Parthia, located in what is now northwest Iran, a world power that even defeated the Romans under Mark Antony when he attempted to invade their country in 36 b.c. Parthian glance, for a very keen backward glance, became proverbial, as did Parthian arrow or shaft or shot, the last by extension giving us the expression parting shot. Thus when you get in the last word in an argument, a parting shot, you are shooting a Parthian arrow. See saw. |