Brewer's: Cuishes

or Cuisses (2 syl.). Armour for the thighs. (French, cuisse, the thigh.)

“Soon o'er his thighs he placed the cuishes bright.” Jerusalem Delivered, book xi.

“His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed.” Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV., iv. 1.

Cul de Sac (French). A blind alley, or alley blocked up at one end like a sack. Figuratively, an argument, etc., that leads to nothing.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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