SHREWSBURY CLOCK


PRONUNCIATION: (SHROZ/SHROOZ-bree/ber-ee/buh-ree klok)

MEANING: noun: Something precise or exact.

ETYMOLOGY: After Shrewsbury, a town in west UK. Earliest documented use: 1598.

NOTES: In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 John Falstaff claims that he and Hotspur “fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock” in the Battle of Shrewsbury. The term Shrewsbury clock here refers to a public clock as most people didn’t have clocks at the time. The idiom by a Shrewsbury clock has come to imply exactly or precisely, sometimes with a hint of exaggeration or irony.
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SHREWSBURY CLICK - welcoming the sunrise with an unusual single brief high-frequency cricket-like chirr, characteristic of a clock found in west UK.

SHREWSBURY COCK - a unique weathervane atop the clock tower in Shrewsbury, known for the atypical noise it makes at dawn welcoming the sunrise with an unusual single etc. (see SHREWSBURY CLICK above)

SHREWSBURN CLOCK - device for timing the roasting of unwelcome small voracious burrowing rodents