英语词汇clean as a whistle的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

clean as a whistle. One possibility is that the old simile de- scribes the whistling sound of a sword as it swishes through the air to decapitate someone, and an early 19th-century quo- tation does suggest this connection: “A first rate shot . . . [his] head taken off as clean as a whistle.” The expression is prover- bial, at least since the 18th century, when Robert Burns used a variation on it. More likely the basic idea suggests the clear, pure sound a whistle makes, or the slippery smooth surface of a willow stick debarked to make a whistle. But there is also a chance that the phrase may have originally been as clean as a whittle, referring to a piece of smooth wood after it is whittled.

词汇	clean as a whistle
词源	clean as a whistle. One possibility is that the old simile de- scribes the whistling sound of a sword as it swishes through the air to decapitate someone, and an early 19th-century quo- tation does suggest this connection: “A first rate shot . . . [his] head taken off as clean as a whistle.” The expression is prover- bial, at least since the 18th century, when Robert Burns used a variation on it. More likely the basic idea suggests the clear, pure sound a whistle makes, or the slippery smooth surface of a willow stick debarked to make a whistle. But there is also a chance that the phrase may have originally been as clean as a whittle, referring to a piece of smooth wood after it is whittled.
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