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Brewer's: Blacks
Mutes at funerals, who wore a black cloak; sometimes called the Black Guards. I do pray ye To give me leave to live a little longer. You stand about me like my Blacks. Beaumont and…Brewer's: North-east Passage
(The). A way to India from Europe round the north extremit of Asia. It had been often attempted even in the 16th century Hence Beaumont and Fletcher. That everlasting cassock, that has…Brewer's: Pedlars' French
The slang of the Romany folk. Even Bracton uses the word Frenchman as a synonym of foreigner, and it is not long since that everyone who could not speak English was called a Frenchman. The…Brewer's: Querpo
(2 syl.). Shrill Querpo in Garth's Dispensary, was Dr. Howe. In querpo. In one's shirt-sleeves, in undress. (Spanish, en cuerpo, without a cloak.) “Boy, my cloak and rapier; it fits not a…Brewer's: Red
The colour of magic. “Red is the colour of magic in every country, and has been so from the very earliest times. The caps of fairies and musicians are well-nigh always red.” —Yeates: Fairy…Brewer's: Prig
A knavish beggar in the Beggar's Bush, by Beaumont and Fletcher. Prig. A coxcomb, a conceited person Probably the Anglo-Saxon pryt or pryd. Prig. To filch or steal. Also a pick-pocket or…Brewer's: Stilo Novo
New-fangled notions. When the calendar was reformed by Pope Gregory XIII. (1582), letters used to be dated stilo novo, which grew in time to be a cant phrase for any innovation. “And so I…Brewer's: Fan
I could brain him with his lady's fan (1 Henry IV., ii. 3)—i.e. knock his brains out with a fan handle. The ancient fans had long handles, so that ladies used their fans for walking-sticks…Brewer's: Ordinary
(An). One who has an “ordinary or regular jurisdiction” in his own right, and not by deputation. thus a judge who has authority to take cognisance of causes in his own right is an ordinary…Brewer's: Palamon and Arcite
(2 syl.). Two young Theban knights who fell into the hands of “Duke Theseus,” and were shut up in a donjon at Athens. Both fell in love with Emily, the duke's sister-in-law. In time they…Trending
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