boll weevilとは 意味・読み方・使い方

名詞

boll weevil (plural boll weevils)

1. A beetle (Anthonomus grandis) measuring an average length of six millimeters (¼ inch), which feeds on cotton buds and flowers, native to Central America.
   • 1929, William Faulkner, “The Sound and the Fury”, in The Sound and the Fury & As I Lay Dying, New York, N.Y.: The Modern Library, published 1946, →OCLC, page 248:

     “ […] What do you reckon the boll-weevils’ll eat if you dont get those cultivators in shape to raise them a crop?” I says, “sage grass?”

2. (US politics, informal, dated) A conservative Southern Democrat.
   • 2019, Richard Carr, quoting John Chamberlain, March of the Moderates […] ‎, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

     As the veteran columnist John Chamberlain put it back in 1982, the ATARI Democrats ‘include many of the Southern “boll weevil” contingent that has supported Reagan on taxes, [and] is for using government to channel investment money to the newer “high tech” industries.