英和和英

発音

形容詞

red-handed (comparative more red-handed, superlative most red-handed)

1. (idiomatic) Showing clear evidence of guilt; in the act of wrongdoing.

   to catch red-handed

   • 1905 January 12, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], The Scarlet Pimpernel, popular edition, London: Greening & Co., published 20 March 1912, →OCLC:

     Caught, red-handed, on the spot, in the very act of aiding and abetting the traitors against the Republic of France, the Englishman could claim no protection from his own country.

   • 1960 May, “Wanton Damage in Trains”, in Railway Magazine, page 300:

     Railway police are making a full investigation into the matter, and the headmasters of schools have been approached, but it is difficult in such cases to discover the culprits, unless they are caught red-handed.

   • 1991 October, Edward L. Ayers, “Legacy of violence”, in American Heritage, volume 42, number 6, page 102:

     Another Southerner argued that "commerce has no social illusions" and that it would be commerce that would rid the region of "this historic, red-handed, deformed, and swaggering villain."

   • 2003 August, Pamela Paul, “Dear Reader, Get a Life.”, in Psychology Today, volume 36, number 4, page 56:

     Your husband is having sex with other women -- that's perfectly clear. Sometimes when cheaters are nabbed red-handed they react with anger, they "rage" in an attempt to make the person who caught 'em feel like they did something wrong.

   • 2003, Julie Elizabeth Leto, Up to no good, Toronto; New York: Harlequin:

     Made sense she'd be nervous, right? Made sense that she'd jump like a red-handed pickpocket when her friend Danielle, whom she'd thought had zonked out the minute she'd buckled her seat belt ten minutes ago, threw out such an intimate topic of conversation.

2. Deadly, bloody.
   • 2013, The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire, →ISBN:

     The demon of fire followed close upon the heels of the unseen fiend of the earth's hidden caverns, and ran red-handed through the metropolis of the West, kindling a thousand unhurt buildings, while the horror-stricken people stood aghast in terror, as helpless to combat this new enemy as they were to check the ravages of the earthquake itself.

   • 2014, Christian Cameron, The Great King, →ISBN:

     I grew to manhood listening to Greeks and Persians plotting various plots in my master's house, and one night all the plots burst forth into ugly blossoms and bore the fruit of red-handed war, and the Greek cities of Ionia revolted against the Persian overlords.

   • 2014, Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword, →ISBN:

     He sees in Conan a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land.

3. (informal) With hands that are red from blood.
   • 2008, Trevor Baxendale, Doctor Who: Wishing Well, →ISBN, page 67:

     The blisters had wept blood for a while, leaving him literally red-handed for the rest of the night.

   • 2014, Rosa Liksom, Compartment - Issue 6, →ISBN:

     A red-handed cleaning lady slopped a wet, ragged mop.

使用する際の注意点

• Almost always used with the verb catch.

派生語

参考

• bang to rights
• caught with one's hand in the cookie jar
• in flagrante delicto
• pink-handed
• wrongdoing

参照