jerry-built

• adj. 偷工减料的

词源不详。可能来自某个做豆腐渣工程的Jerry.一种说法认为来自19世纪某利物浦建筑商Jerry,因做豆腐渣建筑而为人所知。

1. of inferior workmanship and materials;

"mean little jerry-built houses"

jerry-built

jerry-built: [19] In the absence of any watertight evidence, many theories have been put forward to account for this adjective (first recorded in 1869). One (touted in newspaper correspondence as early as 1884) holds that it immortalizes the incompetence of a firm of Liverpool builders named Jerry, but no proof of that has ever been found. Another would link it, ingeniously, with the walls of Jericho, which fell down as soon as Joshua blew his trumpet.

jerry-built (adj.)

1869, in which jerry has a sense of "bad, defective," probably a pejorative use of the male nickname Jerry (a popular form of Jeremy; compare Jerry-sneak, mid-19c., "sneaking fellow, a hen-pecked husband" [OED]). Or from or influenced by nautical slang jury "temporary," which came to be used of all sorts of makeshift and inferior objects (see jury (adj.)).

The place is a bit jerry-built.

这地方建造得有些不牢靠。

柯林斯例句