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Brewer's: Tournament
or Tournay. A tilt of knights; the chief art of the game being so to manoeuvre or turn your horse as to avoid the adversary's blow. (French, tournoiement, verb, tournoyer.) Tournament of…Brewer's: Turlupin
a punster or farceur, with turlupinade, and the verb turlupiner. It was usual in the 17th century for play-writers in Italy and France to change their names. Thus Le Grand called himself…Brewer's: Ugly
means hag-like. Mr. Dyer derives it from ouph-lie, like an ough or goblin. The Welsh hagr, ugly, would rather point to hag-lie, like a hag; but we need only go to the Old English verb ugge…Brewer's: Vole
He has gone the vole - i.e. been everything by turns. Vole is a deal at cards that draws the whole tricks. The verb vole means to win all the tricks. Vole is a French word Faire la vole- i…Brewer's: Snickersnee
A large clasp-knife, or combat with clasp-knives. (“Snick,” Icelandic snikka, to clip; verb, snitte, to cut. “Snee” is the Dutch snee, an edge; snijden, to cut.) Thackeray, in his Little…Brewer's: Stock
From the verb to stick (to fasten, make firm, fix). Live stock. The fixed capital of a farm. Stock in trade. The fixed capital. The village stocks, in which the feet are stuck or…Brewer's: Wife
is from the verb to weave. (Saxon wefan, Danish vaevc, German weben, whence weib, a woman, one who works at the distaff.) Woman is called the…Brewer's: Tartaros
(Greek), Tartarus (Latin). That part of the infernal regions where the wicked are punished. (Classic mythology.) The word “Hell” occurs seventeen times in the English version of the New…Brewer's: Scuttle
To scuttle a ship is to bore a hole in it in order to make it sink. Rather strangely, this word is from the same root as our word shut or bolt (Saxon scyttel, a lock, bolt, or bar). It was…Brewer's: Shilling
Said to be derived from St. Kilian, whose image was stamped on the “shillings” of Würzburg. Of course this etymology is of no value. (Anglo-Saxon, scylling or scilling, a shilling.)…Trending
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