fizzle: [16] Originally, fizzle meant ‘fart silently or unobtrusively’: ‘And then in court they poisoned one another with their fizzles’, Benjamin Walsh’s translation of Aristophanes’ Knights 1837. Then in the mid-19th century it started to be used for a ‘weak spluttering hissing sound’, and hence figuratively ‘end feebly’. In the earlier sense, fizzle was probably a derivative of the now obsolete English verb fist ‘fart’ (source of feisty), which came ultimately from Indo-European *pezd- (no doubt imitative of the sound of breaking wind).
The later sense is close enough semantically to suggest that it is probably a metaphorical extension of the earlier, but it could also be a new formation, based on fizz [17] (which was also of onomatopoeic origin). => feisty
1530s, "to break wind without noise," probably altered from obsolete fist, from Middle English fisten "break wind" (see feisty) + frequentative suffix -le. Related: Fizzled; fizzling.
Meaning "make a noise as of a liquid or gas forced out a narrow aperture" is from 1859, "usually with special reference to the weakness and sudden diminution or cessation of such sound" [Century Dictionary], hence the figurative sense "prove a failure, stop abruptly after a more-or-less brilliant start." But this sense is earlier and dates to at least 1847 in American English college slang, along with the noun sense of "failure, fiasco" (1846), also originally U.S. college slang, "a failure in answering an examination by a professor." Barnhart says it is "not considered as derived from the verb." Halliwell ("Archaic and Provincial Words," 1846) has fizzle (v.) as "To do anything without noise," which might connect the college slang with the older word via some notion of mumbled and stifled performance:
In many colleges in the United States, this word is applied to a bad recitation, probably from the want of distinct articulation, which usually attends such performances. It is further explained in the Yale Banger, November 10, 1846: "This figure of a wounded snake is intended to represent what in technical language is termed a fizzle. The best judges have decided that to get just one third of the meaning right constitutes a perfect fizzle." [John Bartlett, "A Collection of College Words and Customs," Cambridge, 1851]
双语例句
1. The whole project was a fizzle.
整个计划失败了.
来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
2. " On the other hand , the scheme may fizzle out.
“ 大概是不行的罢?
来自子夜部分
3. All our work is a fizzle.
我的全部工作都完蛋了.
来自口语例句
4. Can disease of department of gynaecology cause skin hair to fizzle out?
妇科病会不会引起皮肤发黄?
来自互联网
5. It is not a promising thing; probably it will just fizzle out.
