Grease Monkeyとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

First use appears c. 1910 in a translated work. See cite below. May have originated during the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, when children were used to grease the large rotating axles which were used to transfer power from one centralized steam engine to all of the machines on the factory floor. These children, covered in grease and crawling in the tight spaces in the ceilings, were equated with monkeys.

名詞

grease-monkey (plural grease-monkeys)

1. Alternative form of grease monkey.
   • 1929 January, Alan Gibson, quotee, “A Byrd Applicant Take to the Air”, in Boys' Life, volume 19, number 1, New York, N. Y.: Boy Scouts of America, page 56:

     During my second week here I got a job with the Ryan Company, working in the hangar half-days, Saturdays and Sundays, as a grease-monkey.

   • 1944, Lida Larrimore, Bugles in Her Heart, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 152:

     “I left you a rather trim and attractive young woman. And certainly clean. What has happened to you? You look like a grease-monkey, Jan.”

   • 1994 November 5, Ross Tieman, “Yachtsmen on a long-term voyage to recovery”, in The Times, number 65,104, London, page 25:

     Where Babcock has proprietary technologies, they will be preserved and developed, in so far as they help to give the company an edge over its rivals. But make no mistake, if Parker and Salmon have their way, boiler suits are the workwear of yesteryear at Babcock. Graduates, not grease-monkeys, are the typical employees of the future.