Is your dander up or riz? Is your angry passion up? This is generally considered to be an Americanism; but Halliwell gives, in his Archaic Dictionary, both dander (anger) and dandy (…
Before you can say Jack Robinson. Immediately. Grose says that the saying had its birth from a very volatile gentleman of that name, who used to pay flying visits to his neighbours, and…
Probably a corruption of Abron, meaning auburn. Halliwell quotes the following from Coriolanus, ii. 3: “Our heads are some brown, some black, some Abram, some bald.” And again, “Where is…
This is a strange blunder. A napperon , converted into An apperon. “Napperon” is French for a napkin, from nappe (cloth in general). Halliwell, in his Archaic Dictionary, p. 571, gives…
I'll powder your jacket for you. A corruption of poudrer (to dust). (See Dust.) Lo! in powdur [dust] ye schall slepe, For out of powdur fyrst ye came. Quoted by Halliwell under “Poudre.”…
A romping girl, formerly used for a harlot. (Saxon, tumbere, a dancer or romper; Danish, tumle, “to tumble about;” French, tomber; Spanish, tumbar; our tumble.) The word may either be…
(The). So Burke called Birmingham. Here “toy” does not refer to playthings for children, but small articles made of steel. “Light toys” in Birmingham mean mounts, small steel rings, sword…
has no connection with the Homeric “Troy,” but means a maze, labyrinth, or bower. (Welsh troi, to turn; troedle, a trodden place [? street], whence the archaic trode, a path or track;…
Quite and entirely new. A spic is a spike or nail, and a span is a chip. So that a spick and span new ship is one in which every nail and chip is new. Halliwell mentions “span new.”…
or Stye. Christ styed up to heaven. Halliwell gives sty = a ladder, and the verb would be to go to heaven, as it were, by Jacob's ladder. The Anglo-Saxon verb stigan means to ascend. The…
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