to pull through
To get oneself well out of a difficulty— such as over a serious illness, through a stiff examination, etc. To work in harmony with one view; to co-operate heartily.
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to push off
To commence the game, the operations, etc. A phrase from boating — one starts by pushing the boat off from the bank. Push off! said imperatively, is equivalent to "Get you gone!" "Go to the devil!
To put on English
In billiards, to apply spin to the ball.
to put on the dog
To behave in a conceited or bumptious manner.
to put on the screw
A phrase surviving from the days when the thumb screw was used as a form of torture to extract confessions or money. To press for payment, as a screw presses by gradually increasing pressure. Hence to apply the screw, to give the screw another turn, to take steps (or additional steps) to enforce one's demands.
to put one on his guard
To "give him the tip," show him where the danger lies. A guardroom is the place where military offenders are detained; and a guardship is a ship stationed in a port or harbour for its defence.
to put one's foot down
To make a firm stand, to refuse or insist upon a thing firmly and finally.
to put one's pipe out
To spoil his piping; to make him change his key or sing a different tune; to "take his shine out.
to put out one's light
To kill him, "send him into the outer darkness." Othello says, "Put out the light and then put out the light.
to put someone in the shade
To out-do him, eclipse him; to attract to yourself all the applause and encomiums he had been en- joying.
to put the mite's eye out
To make broth or pudding so thin that even a miller's eye would be puzzled to find the flour.
to put things to rights
To put every article in its proper place.
to put to the blush
To make one blush with shame, annoyance, or confusion.
to put to the horn
To denounce as a rebel, or pronounce a person an outlaw, for not answering to a summons. In Scotland the messenger-at-arms used to go to the Cross of Edinburgh and give three blasts with a horn before he proclaimed judgment of outlawry.
to quash
To suppress, annul or overthrow; vulgarly pronounced squash: they squashed the indictment.
to queer
To puzzle or confound. I have queered the old full bottom; i.e. I have puzzled the judge. To queer one's ogles among bruisers; to darken one's day lights.
to queer one's pitch
To forestall him; to render his efforts nugatory by underhand means.
to queue up
A term that came into pro- minence during the World Wars, especially in connexion with the food shortage, when hun- dreds of people had to wait for hours in long lines before they could obtain their "rations" at the butcher's, grocer's, etc.
to quibble
To make subtle distinctions; also to play upon words.
to rack one's brains
To strain them to find out or recollect something; to puzzle about something.
to rag
To abuse, and tear to rags the characters of the persons abused. She gave him a good ragging, or ragged him off heartily.
to railroad
To hustle someone through (as of school) or out (as of an as- sembly) with unseemly haste and without reference to the proper formalities.
to raise the wind
To obtain ready money by hook or by crook.
to ramp
To snatch, or tear any thing forcibly from the person.
to rat
To forsake a losing side for the stronger party, as rats are said to forsake un- seaworthy ships. One who deserts his party, as a "blackleg" during a strike, is sometimes called a rat.
to read oneself in
Said of a clergyman on entering upon a new incumbency, because one of his first duties is to give a public reading of the Thirty-nine Articles in the church to which he has just been appointed, and to make the Declaration of Assent.
to reck one's own rede
To be governed by one's own better judgment. Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whilst, like a puffed and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede.
to reckon without your host
To reckon from your own standpoint only; not to take into consideration what the other man may do or think.
to recover the ashes
A cricket term applied to the England- Australia cricket seasons played alternately in the two countries, the "ashes" being the mythical prize contended for. When England was beaten in 1882 a humorous epitaph on English cricket appeared in a sporting journal, and it wound up with the remark that " the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia." There are seyeral more or less fabulous embroideries of this story.
to recruit
To get a fresh supply of money.
to rest on one's oars
To take an interval of rest after hard work. A boating phrase.
to retire into one's shell
To become reticent and uncommunicative, to withdraw oneself from society in a forbidding way. The allusion is to the tortoise, which, once it has "got into its shell," is quite unget-at-able.
to return to our muttons
To come back to the subject. See MOUTONS.
To ride abroad with St
George, but at home with St. Michael. Said of a henpecked braggart.
to ride and tie
Said of a couple of travellers who have only one horse between them. One rides on ahead and then ties the horse up and walks on, the other taking his turn on the horse when he has reached it.
to ride bodkin
To ride in a carriage be- tween two others, the accommodation being only for two. There is no ground for the suggestion that bodkin in this sense is a contrac- tion of body kin, a little body. The allusion to something so slender that it can be squeezed in anywhere is obvious.
to ride for a fall
To proceed with one's busi- ness recklessly; usually, also desperately and regardless of consequences.
to ride hell for leather
To ride with the utmost speed, "all out." To work, play, etc., like hell.
to ride the black donkey
To be pig-headed, obstinate like a donkey. Black is added, not so much to designate the colour, as to express what is bad.
to ring a peal
To scold; chiefly applied to women. His wife rung him a fine peal!
to ring an anchor
To haul it up so that its ring is at the hawse-hole or cathead.
to ring down the curtain
To bring a matter to an end. A theatrical term. When the play is over, the bell rings and the curtain comes down.
to rise to the fly
To be taken in by a hoax, as a fish rises to the angler's fly and is caught.
to roast
To arrest. I'll roast the dab; I'll arrest the rascal.--Also to jeer, ridicule, or banter. He stood the roast; he was the butt.--Roast meat clothes; Sunday or holiday-clothes. To cry roast meat; to boast of one's situation. To rule the roast; to be master or paramount.
to roger
To bull, or lie with a woman; from the name of Roger being frequently given to a bull.
to rope one in
To get him to take part in some scheme, enterprise, etc. An expression from the western states of America, where horses and cattle are roped in with a lasso.
to round on one
To turn on him; to turn in- former against him.
to rub
To run away. Don't rub us to the whit; don't send us to Newgate. CANT.--To rub up; to refresh: to rub up one's memory. A rub: an impediment. A rubber; the best two out of three. To win a rubber: to win two games out of three.
to rule the roast
To have the chief direction ; to be paramount. The phrase was common in the 15th century, and it is possible that roast was originally roost, the reference being to a cock, who decides which hen is to roost nearest to him; but it is unlikely; in Thomas Hey wood's His- tory of Women (about 1630) we read of "her that ruled the roast in the kitchen.
to run a buck
To poll a bad vote at an election.--IRISH TERM.
to run a foil
To puzzle; to lead astray. The track of game is called its foil; and an animal hunted will sometimes run back over the same foil in order to mislead its pursuers. In another sense the word means "to baffle, frustrate, parry.** It comes from the O.Fr. fouler, to trample upon ( we have the same word in the phrase "to full cloth")- His schemes were foiled, he was prevented in what he had in mind.
to run a man down
To depreciate him, or to abuse him to a third party. To run a rig. See RIG.
to run aboard of
To run foul of another ship. See also ABOARD. Boast of England, The. A name given to "Tom Thumb" or "Tom-a-lin" by Richard Johnson, who in 1599 published a "history of this ever-renowned soldier, the Red Rose Knight, surnamed The Boast of England, showing his honourable victories in foreign countries, with his strange fortunes in Faery Land, and how he married the fair Angliterra, daughter of Prester John. . . .
to run down
To cease to go or act from lack of motive force, or a clock when the spring is fully unwound.
to run in one's beard
To offer opposition to a person ; to do something obnoxious to a person before his face.
to run riot
To act without restraint or con- trol; to act m a very disorderly way. The phrase was originally used of hounds which had lost the scent.
to run the rig
To have a bit of fun, or in- dulge in practical jokes. He little thought when he set out Of running such a rig.
to run the show
To take charge of it, generally with ostentation; to make oneself responsible for its success.
to run to earth
To discover in a hiding- place; to get to the bottom of a matter.
to run upon sorts
In printing, said of work which requires an unusual number of certain letters, etc.; as an index, which requires a disproportionate number of capitals.
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