Brewer's: Vail

(To). To lower; to cast down. Brutus complained that he had not lately seen in Cassius that courtesy and show of love which he used to notice; to which Cassius replies, “If I have vailed [lowered] my looks, I turn the trouble of my countenance merely on myself. Vexed I am of late ... [and this may] give some soil to my behaviour.”

His hat, which never vailed to human pride, Walker with reverence took and laid aside.

Dunciad, iv.

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