King Stork
A tyrant that devours his subjects, and makes them submissive with fear and trembling. The allusion is to the fable of The Frogs desiring a King. See Loo.
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king's bad bargain
One of the king's bad bargains; a malingeror, or soldier who shirks his duty.
King's Bench division
These trials are for very difficult causes, before special juries, and occupy the attention of the four judges in the superior court, instead of at NistPrius.
King's Cave
Opposite to Campbelton; so called because it was here that King Robert Bruce and his retinue lodged when they landed on the mainland from the Isle of Arran.
King's Crag
Fife, in Scotland. So called because Alexander ill of Scotland was killed there (1286).
King's Cross
Up to the accession of George IV this London locality was called "Battle Bridge" and had an infamous notoriety. The name was changed in 1821, when the neigh- bourhood was being developed by speculating builders. A battle is said to have been fought on this site between King Alfred and the Danes, but it is mostly a matter of legend, no facts having yet been discovered to substantiate the story.
king's cushion
a soft or comfortable job
king's evidence
That of an accessory against his accomplices, under the promise of pardon.
King's Evil
Scrofula; so called from a notion which prevailed from the reign of Edward the Confessor to that of Queen Anne that it could be cured by the royal touch. The Jacobites considered that the power did not descend to William III and Anne because the "divine" hereditary right was not fully pos- sessed by them, but the office remained m our Prayer-Book till 1719.
King's Lynn
The town in Norfolk has been so called since the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, when certain Church property fell into the hands of
king's wood lion
An Ass. Kingswood is famous for the great number of asses kept by the colliers who inhabit that place.
kingdom come
He is gone to kingdom come, he is dead.
Kingdom Come
Death, the grave, execution, the next world. And forty pounds be theirs, a pretty sum, For sending such a rogue to kingdom come. PETER PINDAR: Subjects for Painters.
kings have long hands
Do not quarrel with a king, as his power and authority reach to the end of his dominions. The Latin proverb is, An nescis longas regibus esse manus (Ovid), Heroides, 17, 166).
Kingston Bridge
A card bent so that when the pack is cut it is cut at this card.
king’s pictures
(now, of course, QUEEN’S PICTURES), money.
Kinless Loons
The judges whom Cromwell sent into Scotland were so termed, because they had no relations in the country and so were free from temptation to nepotism. They tried the accused on the merits of the case.
kip
The skin of a large calf, in the language of the Excise-office.
kip-shop
A brothel.
kipe
To steal.
kipper
A torpedo.
kipsy
A basket.
Kirk of Skulls
Gamrie Church, in Banffshire; so called because the skulls and other bones of the Norsemen who fell in the neighbouring field, the Bloody Pots, were built into its walls.
Kirkc's Lambs
The Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment, so called from their colonel, Percy Kirke (c. 1646-91). The regiment was originally known as the Tangier Regiment, the badge of which was a Pascal Lamb, the crest of the house of Braganza, in compliment to Queen Catherine, to whom they were a guard of honour in her progress to London. There was an ironical turn to the nickname as "Kirke's Lambs" were notoriously a tough lot.
kisky
Drunk.
kiss and cry
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
kiss and make up
Make peace.
kiss arse
To excessively flatter or try to win favor from someone
kiss ass
to flatter or try to win favor by flattering people
kiss mine a-se
An offer, as Fielding observes, very frequently made, but never, as he could learn, literally accepted. A kiss mine a-se fellow; a sycophant.
kiss my ass
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
kiss off
to dismiss or reject someone or something
kiss someone's ass
To flatter or try to win favor with someone by being excessively nice
kiss someone's ring
Show respect or loyalty to someone in power
kiss the gunner's daughter
to be flogged at the mast
kiss up
to flatter or try to win favor by flattering
kiss up to
to flatter or try to win favor with someone
kiss-curl
A small curl twisted on the temple. See BOWCATCHER.
kiss-me-quick
The name given to the very small bonnets which have of late years become fashionable.
kisser
The mouth.
kisser
The mouth.—Pugilistic term.
kissing crust
That part where the loaves have touched the oven.
Kissing the Pope's toe
Matthew of West- minster says it was customary formerly to kiss the hand of his Holiness; but that a certain woman, in the 8th century, not only kissed the Pope's hand, but "squeezed it.*' The Church magnate, seeing the danger to which he was exposed, cut off his hand, and was compelled in future to offer his foot. In reality, the Pope's foot (i.e.
kissing-crust
The soft crust which marks where one loaf has been broken from another.
kit
A dancing-master, so called from his kit or cittern, a small fiddle, which dancing-masters always carry about with them, to play to their scholars. The kit is likewise the whole of a soldier's necessaries, the contents of his knapsack: and is used also to express the whole of different commodities: as, Here, take the whole kit; i.e. take all.
kit
A person’s baggage. Also, a collection of anything, "the whole KIT of ’em," the entire lot. Anglo-Saxon, KYTH.—North.
kit and caboodle
The entire collection or all of something
Kit's Cory House
A great cromlech, 3£ m. N.W. of Maidstone on the Rochester road, consisting of a vast block of sandstone resting on three other blocks. It is near the ancient battlefield of Aylesford, where the Saxons under Hengist and Horsa fought the Britons, whose chieftain was, according to the Chron- icles, named Catigern, and some authorities derive the name from him.
kit-cat club
A society of gentlemen, eminent for wit and learning, who in the reign of queen Anne and George I. met at a house kept by one Christopher Cat. The portraits of most of the members of this society were painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of one size; thence still called the kit-cat size.
kitchen physic
Food, good meat roasted or boiled. A little kitchen physic will set him up; he has more need of a cook than a doctor.
kitchen table software
Simple, user-friendly software for non-technical people.
kith and kin
A fixed-order word pair (irreversible binomial); full definition pending editorial review.
kitmegur
An under-butler, a footman.—Anglo-Indian.
kitna
How much?—Anglo-Indian.
kittle pitchering
A jocular method of hobbling or bothering a troublesome teller of long stories: this is done by contradicting some very immaterial circumstance at the beginning of the narration, the objections to which being settled, others are immediately started to some new particular of like consequence; thus impeding, or rather not suffering him to enter into, the main story. Kittle pitchering is often practised in confederacy, one relieving the other, by which the design is rendered less obvious.
kittys
Effects, furniture; stock in trade. To seize one's kittys; to take his sticks.
knack shop
A toy-shop, a nick-nack-atory.
knacker
An old horse; a horse-slaughterer. Originally Gloucestershire, but now general.
knap
I.q., NAP, to break.—Old English, but nearly obsolete. See Ps. xlvi. 9 (Prayer-book version), "He breaketh the bow, and KNAPPETH the spear in sunder;" probably sibilated into "snap."
knappers poll
A sheep's head. CANT.