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Brewer's: High Tea
The meal called tea served with cold meats, vegetables, and pastry, in substitution of dinner. “A well-understood `high tea' should have cold roast beef at the top of the table, a cold…Brewer's: John Anderson, my Jo
This song, like “Green Sleeves and Pudding Pies,” “Maggy Lauder” and some others, were invectives against the Catholic clergy about the time of the Reformation. The first verse refers to…Brewer's: Canossa
Canossa, in the duchy of Modena, is where (in the winter of 1076-7) Kaiser Heinrich IV. went to humble himself before Pope Gregory VII. (Hildebrand). Has the Czar gone to Canossa? Is he…Brewer's: Drawing the Nail
i.e. absolving oneself of a vow. In Cheshire, two or more persons would agree to do something, or to abstain from something, say drinking beer; and they would go into a wood, and register…Brewer's: Dutch Clocks
i.e. German clocks, chiefly made in the Black Forest. As many as 180,000 are exported annually from Friburg. (German, Deutsch, German.) A woman, that is like a German clock. Still a-…Brewer's: Cold Pigeon
(A ). A message sent in place of a love-letter. The love-letter would have been a poulet (q.v.). A pigeon pie is called a dove-tart, and dove is symbolical of love. Pyramus says of…Brewer's: Bother
i.e. pother (Hibernian). Halliwell gives us blother, which he says means to chatter idly. `Sir,' cries the umpire, `cease your pother, The creature's neither one nor t'other.' Lloyd: The…Brewer's: Magpie
A contraction of magotpie, or magata-pie. “Mag” is generally thought to be a contraction of Margaret; thus we have Robin red-breast, Tom-tit, Philip —i.e. a sparrow, etc. “Augurs and…Brewer's: Pit-a-pat
My heart goes pit-a-pat. Throbs, palpitates. “Pat” is a gentle blow (Welsh, ffat), and “pit” is a mere ricochet expletive. We have a vast number of such ricochot words, as “fiddle-faddle…Brewer's: Points
Armed at all points. “Armé de toutes pièces,” or “Armé jusqu' aux dents.” “Armed at all points exactly cap-à-pie. ” To stand on points. On punctilios; delicacy of behaviour. “This fellow…Trending
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