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Entelechy The kingdom of Queen Quintessence in the famous satirical romance of Rabelais called
the History of Gargantua and Pantagruel'. Pantagruel and his companions went thither in search
of the Holy Bottle. It may be called the city of speculative science.
The word is used to express the realisation of a beau ideal. Lovers have preconceived notions of human perfections, and imagine that they see the realities in the person beloved, who is the entelechy of their beau ideal.
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Enthusiast is one who believes that he himself is in God, or that God is in him (Greek, en theos). Our word inspired is very
similar, being the Latin in spiritu (in the spirit).
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Ephebi Youths between the age of eighteen and twenty were so called at Athens. (Greek, arrived at puberty.)
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Our word inspired is very similar, being the Latin in spiritu (in the spirit).
What does that say about perspire? I'd thought the -spire- root concerned breath ("respiration").
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Episode (3 syl.) is the Greek epieis-odos (coming in besides - i.e. adventitious), meaning an adventitious tale introduced into the main story.
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Epistle is something sent to another. A letter sent by messenger or post. (Greek, epi-stello.)
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Excalibur (Ex cal [ce] liber [atus]). Liberated from the stone. The sword which Arthur drew out of the stone, whereby he proved himself to be the king. (See Sword.)
As many times as I read the King Arthur stories, I never heard this before.
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Excelsior Aim at higher things still. It is the motto of the New York State, and has been made popular by Longfellow's poem so named. Used also as the synonym of super-excellent.
When I was a boy, all my father's medicines came packed with fine square cross-sectioned strands of
pine, which was called "excelsior". i could not understand the Longfellow poem: Shades of night were
falling fast, when through an Alpine village passed a youth whose banner bore this strange device:
Excelsior"
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Farthing A fourth part. Penny pieces used to be divided into four parts, thus, farthing, and two a halfpenny. (Anglo-Saxon,
feor- thung.)
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Fascination means "slain or overcome by the eyes." The allusion is to the ancient notion of
bewitching by the power of the eye. (Greek, baskaino, i.e. phaesi kaino, to kill with the eyes. See Valpy: Etymology of Greek Words, p. 23, col. 1; Latin. fascino.) (See Evil Eye.)
Joke on me. I thought it had something to do with the fasces, the bundle of rods carried as
symbol of the power of the consuls.
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Fast Girl or Young Lady (A) is one who talks slang, assumes the airs of a knowing one, and has
no respect for female delicacy and retirement. She is the ape of the fast young man.
I hope and pray that no AWADtalk members are "fast girls". Good for a laugh.Rember, the Dictionary
of Phrase and Fable from which these items were taken is over a hundread years old.
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Fata Morgana A sort of mirage occasionally seen in the Straits of Messina. Fata is Italian for a "fairy," and the fairy Morgana
was the sister of Arthur and pupil of Merlin. She lived at the bottom of a lake, and dispensed her treasures to whom she liked.
She is first introduced in the Orlando Innamorato as "Lady Fortune," but subsequently assumes her witch-like attributes. In
Tasso her three daughters are introduced.
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Fey Predestined to early death. When a person suddenly changes his wonted manner of life,
as when a miser becomes liberal, or a churl good-humoured, he is said in Scotch to be fey,
and near the point of death.
My dictionary still gives this as the first meaning, but I have only seen it used in the second
meaning striange, unusual, otherworldly
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Fi or Fie! An exclamation indicating that what is reproved is dirty or indecent. The dung of many animals, as the boar, wolf,
fox, marten, and badger, is called fiants, and the "orificium anale" is called a fi, a word still used in Lincolnshire.
(Anglo-Norman, fay, to clean out; Saxon, afylan, to foul: our defile or file, to make foul; filth, etc.)
The old words, fie-corn (dross corn), fi-lands (unenclosed lands), fi-mashings (the dung of any wild beast), etc., are
compounds of the same word.
Fie on Keiva.
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Findon Haddocks Haddocks smoked with green wood. (See Sir W. Scott: The Antiquary, xxvi.)
Findon or Finnon is a village some six miles south of Aberdeen, where haddocks are cured.
I haven't had finnan haddie for years. How about you, wow?
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I used to fall
In love with all
Those boys who call
On young cuties
But now I find
I'm all inclined
To keep my mind
On my duties
Since I've begun to share
In such a sweet love affair
Though I'm in love, I'm not above
A date with a duke or a caddie
It's just a pose, 'cause my baby knows
That my heart belongs to daddy
When some good scout, invites me out
To dine om some fine finnan haddie
My baby's sure, his love is secure
Cause my heart belongs to daddy
Yes my heart belongs to daddy
So I simply couldn't be bad
Yes I'm gonna marry daddy
Da-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ad
If you feel romantic laddy
Let me warn you right from the start
That my heart belongs to daddy
And my daddy belongs to my heart
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Fir-cone on the Thyrsus. The juice of the fir-tree (turpentine) used to be
mixed by the Greeks with new wine to make it keep; hence it was adopted as one of
the symbols of Bacchus.
A lecturer on biochemistry told us Roman ladies drank small amounts of turpentine, because
it made their urine smell like lavender. Perhaps this is how they learned it. But when I
asked the lecturer for whose benefit the lavender odor was, he had no answer.
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douglas adams, 'fir cone is an anagram of conifer, now don't tell me thats a coincidence!'
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Flotsam and Jetson Waifs found in the sea or on the shore. "Flotsam,"
goods found floating on the sea after a a wreck."Jetson," or Jetsam, things
thrown out of a ship to lighten it. (Anglo-Saxon, flotan, to float; French,
jeter, to throw out.) (See Ligan.)
My dictionary does give meaning of "waif" = anything found by chance that
does not have an owner, but I have never seen it used except to mean
a homeless parentless child.
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Flowers at Funerals The Greeks crowned the dead body with flowers, and placed flowers
on the tomb also. The Romans decked the funeral couch with leaves and flowers, and
spread flowers, wreaths, and fillets on the tomb of friends. When Sulla was buried as
many as 2,000 wreaths were sent in his honour. Most of our funeral customs are derived
from the Romans; as dressing in black, walking in procession, carrying insignia on the bier,
raising a mound over the grave, called tumulus, whence our tomb.
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Fluke Hap-hazard. In billiards it means playing for one thing and getting another.
Hence an advantage gained by luck more than by skill or judgment.
(German, glück, chance, our luck.)
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Flunkey A livery servant. (Old French, flanquier, a henchman.)
H:enchman interests me. I believe, but have not been able to confirm,
that it derives from "hengist" meaning a knight's horse. When a knight
was in a street crowded with people, he had to have a trusted
servant, lead his horse by holding the side of the bridal, so knight
could that both hands free to defend himself from possible assassination
attempt.
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Fogie or Fogey. An old fogey. Properly an old military pensioner. This term is derived
from the old pensioners of Edinburgh Castle, whose chief occupation was to fire the
guns, or assist in quelling street riots. (Allied to fogat, phogot, voget, foged, fogde, etc.)
Spelled fogy, an old fogy is an old man out of touch with progress. In WWII, a captain
in grade for several years was entitled to wear small dark elevated emblems called fogies
on his bars that indicated his length of time in that grade, and seniority over other captains.
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Font in printing, sometimes called Fount, a complete set of type of any one size,
with all the usual points and accents; a font consists of about 100,000 characters.
The word is French, fonte, from fondre (to melt or cast).
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Foolscap A corruption of the Italian foglio-capo (folio-sized sheet). The error must have been very ancient, as the water-mark
of this sort of paper from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century was a fool's head, with cap and bells.
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Foot-lights To appear before the foot-lights. On the stage, where a row of lights is
placed in front along the floor to lighten it up.
I still remember the Christmas play in highschool, when one of the teachers thought
the footlights were not sufficient illuminaton, and turned a bright spotlite from
backstage onto a girl in angel costume, making it very clear that she had no
underwear on.
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Fourth Estate of the Realm (The). The daily press. The most powerful of all.
Burke, referring to the Reporters' Gallery, said,
"Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, more important than them all."
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Frangipani A powerful Roman family. So called from their benevolent distribution of bread during a famine.
Frangipani. A delicious perfume, made of spices, orris-root, and musk, in imitation of real Frangipani. Mutio Frangipani, the
famous Italian botanist, visited the West Indies in 1493. The sailors perceived a delicious fragrance as they neared Antigua, and
Mutio told them it proceeded from the Plumeria Alba. The plant was re-named Frangipani, and the distilled essence received
the same name.
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Frantic Brain-struck (Greek, phren, the heart as the seat of reason), madness being a disorder of the understanding.
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Friar's Heel The outstanding upright stone at Stonehenge is so called. Geoffrey of Monmouth says the devil bought the stones
of an old woman in Ireland, wrapped them up in a wyth, and brought them to Salisbury plain. Just before he got to Mount
Ambre the wyth broke, and one of the stones fell into the Avon, the rest were carried to the plain. After the fiend had fixed
them in the ground, he cried out, "No man will ever find out how these stones came here." A friar replied, "That's more than
thee canst tell," whereupon the foul fiend threw one of the stones at him and struck him on the heel. The stone stuck in the
ground, and remains so to the present hour.
I have seen the "heel stone" in pictures by never knew how it got its name.
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Funny Bone A pun on the word humerus. It is the inner condyle of the humerus; or,
to speak untechnically, the knob, or enlarged end of the bone terminating where
the ulnar nerve is exposed at the elbow; the crazy bone. A knock on this bone at
the elbow produces a painful sensation.
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Furbelow A corruption of falbala, a word in French, Italian, and Spanish to signify
a sort of flounce.
Not to be confused with the pubic hair.
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Futile (2 syl.) is that which will not hold together; inconsistent. A futile scheme is
a design conceived in the mind which will nothold good in practice. (Latin, futio,
to run off like water, whence futilis (See Scheme.)
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Gabardine' (3 syl.). A Jewish coarse cloak. (Spanish, gavardina, a long coarse cloak.)
Dear of troy: a fabric not named for place of origin. Put a mark on the wall.
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Galaxy (The). The "Milky Way." A long white luminous track of stars which seems
to encompass the heavens like a girdle.According to classic fable, it is the path to
the palace of Zeus (1 syl.) or Jupiter. (Greek, gala, milk, genitive, galaktos.)
A galaxy of beauty. A cluster, assembly, or coterie of handsome women.
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Gammut or Gamut g (hard). It is gamma ut, "ut" being the first word in the
Guido-von-Arrezzo scale of ut, re mi, fa, sol, la. In the eleventh century the
ancient scale was extended a note below the Greek proslambanomy note
(our A), the first space of the bass staff. The new note was termed g (gamma),
and when "ut" was substituted by Arrezzo the "supernumerary" note was called
gamma or ut, or shortly gamm' ut - i.e. "G ut." The gammut, therefore, properly
means the diatonic scale beginning in the bass clef with "G."
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Gargouille or Gargoil (g hard). A water-spout in church architecture. Sometimes alsospelt
Gurgoyle. They are usually carved into some fantastic shape, such as a dragon's head,
through which the water flows. Gargouille was the great dragon that lived in the Seine,
ravaged Rouen, and was slain by St. Romanus, Bishop of Rouen, in the seventh century.
(See Dragon.)
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Gaunt (g hard). John of Gaunt. The third son of Edward III.; so called from
Ghent, in Flanders, the place of his birth.
Note the pronunciation of "Ghent".
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Gauntlet (g hard). To run the gantlet. To be hounded on all sides. Corruption of gantlope,
the passage between two files of soldiers. (German, ganglaufen or gassenlaufen.) The
reference is to a punishment common among sailors. If a companion had disgraced himself,
the crew, provided with gauntlets or ropes' ends, were drawn up in two rows facing each
other, and the delinquent had to run between them, while every man dealt him, in passing,
as severe a chastisement as he could.
The custom exists among the North American Indians. (See Fenimore Cooper
I can remember reading references to this, and the name never made sense to me.
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Genoa from the Latin, genu (the knee); so called from the bend made there by the Adriatic. The whole
of Italy is called a man's leg, and this is his knee.
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The gentle craft. Angling. The pun is on gentle, a maggot or grub used for baiting the hook in angling.
Can anyone tell me how fishing came to be called "angling"?
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George Sand The pen-name of Mme. Dudevant, born at Paris 1804. Her maiden name was Dupin.
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CHARLEMAGNE was nearly 8 feet in height, and was so strong he could squeeze together three
horseshoes with his hands.
I wondeer how good the authority for this statement is.
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Gibberish (g hard). Geber, the Arabian, was by far the greatest alchemist of the eleventh century, and
wrote several treatises on "the art of making gold" in the usual mystical jargon, because the ecclesiastics
would have put to death any one who had openly written on the subject. Friar Bacon, in 1282, furnishes a
specimen of this gibberish. He is giving the prescription for making gunpowder, and says -
"Sed tamen salis-petræ
LURU MONE CAP URBE
Et sulphuris."
The second line is merely an anagram of Carbonum pulvere (pulverised charcoal).
"Gibberish," compare jabber, and gabble.
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Gibraltar (g soft). A contraction of Gibel al Tari (Gibal Tar), "mountain of Tari." This Tari ben Zeyad
was an Arabian general who, under the orders of Mousa, landed at Calpë in 710, and utterly defeated
Roderick, the Gothic King of Spain. Cape Tarifa is named from the same general.
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Gift-horse Don't look a gift-horse in the mouth. When a present is made, do not inquire too minutely
into its intrinsic value. (An experienced horse man can judge age, and so the value of a horse by its
teeth.)
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blue[Re Gaberdine: Gabardine' (3 syl.). A Jewish coarse cloak. (Spanish, gavardina, a long coarse cloak.)
One of my dictionaries at home goes back a bit further with gaberdine... just to the 13th C., and relates the word to Pilgriams cloak (not so much a Jewish cloak as a cloak of one on a pilgrimage to Jerusulam.. )
here is more from Bartelby's
Obsolete French gauvardine, from Old French galvardine, perhaps from Middle High German wallevart, pilgrimage : wallen, to roam (from Old High German walln; see wel-2 in Appendix I) + vart, journey (from Old High German, from faran, to go; see per-2 in Appendix I).
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Gig (g hard). A whipping top, made like a Ñ. ( I haven't seen a kid with a "gig" since I was
ten years old. The top was cone shaped, with a screw inserted deeply into tip, and ground to a point.
One laid a short length of string about like fish line a short ways from mtoiddly to the tip, and
then wound the string tightly about the top, more than halways toward the top. The other
end of the string had of bowline knot that fitted over the thumb. When the top was thrown
down, the tension on the string forced it to spin very rapidly. On a hard surface it would
spin for perhaps a minute. Big deal in those days. Some kids tried to split other kids' tops
by aiming their top at them. I never succeeded at that.
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Girl This word has given rise to a host of guesses: -
Railey suggests garrula, a chatterbox.
Minshew ventures the Italian girella, a weather-cock.
Skinner goes in for the Anglo-Saxon ceorl, a churl.
Why not girdle, as young women before marriage wore a girdle [girle]; and part of a Roman marriage
ceremony was for the bridegroom to loose the zone.
As for guessing, the word gull may put in a claim (1 Henry iv. 1); so may the Greek koure, a girl, with
a diminutive suffix koure-la, whence gourla, gourl, gurl, girl.
(The Latin gerula means a maid that attends on a child. Chaucer spells the word gurl.)
Probably the word is a variation of darling, Anglo-Saxon, deorling.
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Glass is from the Celtic glas (bluish-green), the colour produced by the woad employed by the ancient
Britons in dyeing their bodies. Pliny calls it glastrum, and Cæsar vitrum.
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Glass Slipper (of Cinderella). A curious blunder of the translator, who has mistaken vair (sable) for verre
(glass). Sable was worn only by kings and princes, so the fairy gave royal slippers to her favourite.
Hamlet says he shall discard his mourning and resume "his suit of sables" (iii. 2).
Glasse (Mrs. Hannah), a name immortalised by the reputed saying in a cookery book, "First catch your
hare," then cook it according to the directions given. This, like many other smart sayings, evidently grew.
The word in the cookery-book is "cast" (i.e. flay). "Take your hare, and when it is cast" (or cased), do so
and so. (See Case, Catch your Hare.)
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It was Voltaire who said, "Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer."
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Godiva (Lady). Patroness of Coventry. In 1040, Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lord of Coventry, imposed
certain exactions on his tenants, which his lady besought him to remove. To escape her importunity, he
said he would do so if she would ride naked through the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word, and
the Earl faithfully kept his promise.
The legend asserts that every inhabitant of Coventry kept indoors at the time, but a certain tailor peeped
through his window to see the lady pass. Some say he was struck blind, others that his eyes were put out
by the indignant townsfolk, and some that he was put to death. Be this as it may, he has ever since been
called "Peeping Tom of Coventry." Tennyson has a poem on the subject.
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Golden Fleece Ino persuaded her husband, Athamas, that his son Phryxos was the cause of a famine
which desolated the land, and the old dotard ordered him to be sacrificed to the angry gods. Phryxos
being apprised of this order, made his escape over sea on a ram which had a golden fleece. When he
arrived at Colchis, he sacrificed the ram to Zeus, and gave the fleece to King Æe'tes, who hung it on a
sacred oak. It was afterwards stolen by Jason in his celebrated Argonautic expedition. (See Argo.)
I have read that the "Golden Fleece" is somehow a garbled legend from the days when gold was
obtained by pouring sediments from river over a sheep's fleece, the heavy gold particles being
trapped in the wool while the mud and clay were washed away.
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Goodman A husband or master is the Saxon guma or goma (a man), which in the inflected cases
becomes guman or goman. In St. Matt. xxiv. 43, "If the goodman of the house had known in what watch
the thief would come, he would have watched." Gomman and gommer, for the master and mistress of a
house, are by no means uncommon.
Joke on me. I thought it was literally "good man".
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Gourmand and Gourmet (French). The gourmand is one whose chief pleasure is eating; but a gourmet
is a connoisseur of food and wines. In England the difference is this: a gourmand regards quantity more
than quality, a gourmet quality more than quantity. (Welsh, gor, excess; gorm, a fulness; gourmod, too
much; gormant; etc.) (See Apicius.)
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rammar Zenodotos invented the terms singular, plural, and dual.
The scholars of Alexandria and of the rival academy of Pergamos were the first to distinguish language
into parts of speech, and to give technical terms to the various functions of words.
The first Greek grammar was by Dionysios Thrax, and it is still extant. He was a pupil of Aristarchos.
Julius Cæsar was the inventor of the term ablative case.
English grammar is the most philosophical ever devised; and if the first and third personal pronouns, the
relative pronoun, the 3rd person singular of the present indicative of verbs, and the verb "to be" could be
reformed, it would be as near perfection as possible.
It was Kaiser Sigismund who stumbled into a wrong gender, and when told of it replied, "Ego sum
Imperator Romanorum, ct supra grammaticam ' (1520, 1548-1572).
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Grass Widow was anciently an unmarried woman who has had a child, but now the word is used for a
wife temporarily parted from her husband. The word means a grace widow, a widow by courtesy. (In
French, veuve de grace; in Latin, viduca de gratia; a woman divorced or separated from her husband by
a dispensation of the Pope, and not by death; hence, a woman temporally separated from her husband.)
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Greek Fire A composition of nitre, sulphur, and naphtha. Tow steeped in the mixture was hurled in a
blazing state through tubes, or tied to arrows. The invention is ascribed to Callinicos, of Heliopolis, A.D.
668.
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Greek Gift (A). A treacherous gift. The reference is to the Wooden Horse said to be a gift or offering to
the gods for a safe return from Troy, but in reality a ruse for the destruction of the city. (See Fatal Gifts.)
"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."
Virgil: Æneid, ii. 49.
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stranger
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wwh says
>>>Glass Slipper (of Cinderella). A curious blunder of the translator, who has mistaken vair (sable) for verre
(glass). Sable was worn only by kings and princes, so the fairy gave royal slippers to her favourite.<<<
And "vair" perhaps becomes English "fur"?
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Vairy possible. I'll try to look it up. Incidentally, all those posts are just quotes from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. It had a painfully slow server, which you would hate http://www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/115.htmlSearch inidicates no relation of "vair" to "fur": fur - 1301, from O.Fr. fourrer "to line, sheathe," from fuerre "sheath, covering," from a Frank. word based on P.Gmc. *fothram "sheath." The n. is from the v. It was first applied to "animal hair" 15c.
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Pooh-Bah
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Interesting that Goodman has also become a surname.
dxb
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Farthing A fourth part
I well remember the farthing - it must have been legal tender into the 1960s I would guess. It had the monarch's head on the front and a wren on the back. A small coin, it was about the size of the silver threepenny bit that we used to put into Christmas puddings.
Cloth used to be priced to the farthing when I was a boy - 19 shillings, eleven pence and three farthings a yard, or nineteen-eleven-three, was a very common price for my mother to pay for dress making material.
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Pooh-Bah
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Genoa from the Latin, genu (the knee); so called from the bend made there by the Adriatic.
I believe it is also a type of ship's sail. Perhaps it was a type used by ships from that area?
dxb
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Gig (g hard). A whipping topCan one of the musicians on the board tell me why a rock band's performance is called a "gig"? Showing my age here  . dxb
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i too remember farthings from a childhood trip to Dublin.. back then the irish pound was tied to the value of the english pound, and it was $5.70 US to £1 Sterling.. and a farthing was worth almost 2 US cents! Farthings and Ha'pennies went far in a candy store! thru'pence was a fortune!
(mind you i was also mesmerized by a woman on a bus, she had some souvenier jewelry made from US Mercury dimes.. and i sat staring at them.. she started to explain to me that it was American money, and i repied, yes, i knew, she was wearing over $1.70 as jewelry! how rich i thought, she must be to be able to wear money!)
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My dictionary has four words spelled "gig". The fourth one is:
>gig4 7gig8
n.
[Slang]
1 a job performing music, esp. jazz or rock
2 any job
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Dr. Bill, gigs (the tops) can still be found in any mercado in Mexico, at least they could last I looked! My nephews all had them. Thanks for that memory. 
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