to count one's beads
To say one's prayers. See ROSARY. To draw a bead on. See DRAW.
Browse all entries 6192
All languages English Tiếng Việt
To count out the House
To declare the House of Commons adjourned because there are not forty members present. The Speaker has his attention called to the fact, and if he finds that this is so, he declares the sitting over.
to count upon
To rely with confidence on someone or something; to reckon on.
to count without your host
See RECKON. Countenance, To. To sanction; to support. Approval or disapproval is shown by the countenance. The Scripture speaks of "the light of God's countenance," i.e. the smile of approbation; and to "hide His face" (or countenance) is to manifest displeasure.
to crack
To boast or brag; also to break. I cracked his napper; I broke his head.
to crack a bottle
In this phrase the word means to open and drink: — They went to a tavern and there they dined, And bottles cracked most merrihe.
to crack a crib
To break into a house as a thief. See CRIB. Hence, cracksman., a burglar.
to crack up
To praise highly, to eulogize. We find them cracking up the country they belong to, no matter how absurd may be the boast. — JAS. PAYN: By Proxy, ch. i.
to crash
To kill. Crash that cull; kill that fellow. CANT.
to creeme
To slip or slide any thing into the hands of another. CANT.
to crib
To purloin, or appropriate to one's own use, part of any thing intrusted to one's care.
to cross it off
To cancel it by run- ning your pen across it.
to cross swords
To fight a duel; meta- phorically, to meet someone in argument or debate.
to cross the hand
Gypsy fortune-tellers always bid their dupe to "cross their hand with a bit of silver." This, they say, is for luck. The silver remained with the owner of the crossed hand. The sign of the cross warded off witches and all other evil spirits, and, as fortune-telling belongs to the black arts, the palm is signed with a cross to keep off the wiles of the devil.
to crow
To brag, boast, or triumph. To crow over any one; to keep him in subjection: an image drawn from a cock, who crows over a vanquished enemy. To pluck a crow; to reprove any one for a fault committed, to settle a dispute. To strut like a crow in a gutter; to walk proudly, or with an air of consequence.
to crow over one
To exult over a van- quished or abased person. The allusion is to cocks, who always crow when they have gained a victory.
to crush in the egg
To nip in the bud; to ruin some scheme before it has been fairly started.
to cry aim
To applaud, encourage. In archery it was customary to appoint certain persons to cry "Aim!" for the sake of encouraging those who were about to shoot.
to cry bold
To give the order to stop; in the old tournaments, when the umpires wished to stop the contest they cried out "Hold!
to cry cave
To give warning (Lat. cave, beware); used by schoolboys when a master comes in sight.
to cry cock
To claim the victory; to assert oneself to be the superior. As a "cock of the walk" (<?.v.) is the chief or ruler of the whole walk, so to cry cock is to claim this cockship.
to cry cockles
To be hanged; from the gurgling noise made in strangulation. To warm the cockles of one's heart. Said of anything that pleases one immensely and gives one a gratifying sensation, such as does a glass of really good port. (Lat. cochlece cordis, the ventricles of the heart.
to cry for the moon
To crave for wfrat is wholly beyond one's reach, The allusion is £o foolish children who want the moon for 3, plaything. The French say, "He wants to take the moon between his teeth" (// veut prendre fa lune avec les dents), alluding to the old proverb about "trie moon," and a "green cheese.
to cry off
To get out of a bargain; to refuse to carry out one's promise. To cry quits. See QUIT.
to cry stinking fish
To belittle one's own endeavours, offerings, etc. "To cry" here is to offer for sale by shouting one's wares in the street.
to cry up
To praise loudly and publicly. To cry wolf. See WOLF.
to curl the lip
To express contempt or disgust with the mouth.
to cut
(Cambridge.) To renounce acquaintance with any one is to CUT him. There are several species of the CUT. Such as the cut direct, the cut indirect, the cut sublime, the cut infernal, &c. The cut direct, is to start across the street, at the approach of the obnoxious person in order to avoid him. The cut indirect, is to look another way, and pass without appearing to observe him.
to cut
To renounce acquaintance. There are four sorts of cut — (1) The cut direct is to stare an acquaintance in the face and pretend not to know him.
to cut a dash
To make a show; to get oneself looked at and talked about for a showy or striking appearance. "Dashing" means striking — i.e. showy, as a "dashing fellow," a " dashing equipage.
to cut a feather
A ship going fast is said to cut a feather, in allusion to the ripple which she throws off from her bows. Metaphorically, "to cut a dash.
to cut a figure
To make an imposing appearance through dress, equipage, and bearing.
to cut a swath
To make an impression. An American colloquialism usually used in the negative. A swath is the amount of grass or crop cut down with one sweep of a scythe.
to cut bene
To speak gently. To cut bene whiddes; to give good words. To cut queer whiddes; to give foul language. To cut a bosh, or a flash; to make a figure. CANT.
to cut blocks with a razor
To do some- thing astounding by insignificant means; to do something more eccentric than expedient; to "make pm-cushions of sunbeams" (Swift). The tale is that Accius Naevius, a Roman augur, opposed king Tarqum the Elder, who wished to double the number of senators. Tarqum sneered at his pretensions of augury, and asked if he could do what was then in his thoughts.
to cut capers
To spring upwards in dancing, and rapidly interlace one foot with the other; figuratively, to act in an unusual manner with the object of attracting notice. Caper here is from Ital. capra, a she-goat, the allusion being to the erratic way in which goats will jump about.
to cut one's lucky
To decamp or make off quickly: to "cut one's stick" -.. As luck means chance, the phrase may signify, "I must give up my chance and be off.
to cut one's own throat
Figuratively, to adopt a policy, or take action that ruins one's own chances, plans, etc. Similarly, to cut one another's throat is to ruin one another by excessive competition.
to cut short is to shorten
"Cut short all intermission" (Macbeth, iv, 3). To cut it short (cp. AUDLEY) means to bring to an end what you are doing or saying.
to cut someone's comb
To take down a person's conceit. In allusion to the practice of cutting the combs of capons.
to cut the buckle
To caper about, to heel and toe it in dancing. In jigs the two feet buckle or twist into each other with great rapidity.
to cut the knot
To break through an obstacle. The reference is to the Gordian knot (#.v.) shown to Alexander, with the assurance that whoever loosed it would be made ruler of all Asia; whereupon the Macedonian cut it in two with his sword, and claimed to have fulfilled the prophecy.
to cut the painter
To sever connexion; to send one to the right about in double quick time. In the late 19th century the phrase was much used in reference to a possible severance between her Colonial Empire and Great Britain.
to cut up rough
To be disagreeable or quarrelsome about anything. Cut-off, The American equivalent of the English short cut.
to cutty-eye
To look out of the corners of one's eyes, to leer, to look askance. The cull cutty-eyed at us; the fellow looked suspicious at us.
to damn with faint praise
To praise in such measured terms as to deprive the praise of any real value.
to dance and pay the piper
To work hard to amuse and to have to bear all the expense and take all the trouble oneself as well. The allusion is to Matt, xi, 17: — "We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced.
to dance attendance
To wait obsequiously, to be at the beck and call of another. It was an ancient custom at weddings for the bride, no matter how tired she was, to dance with every guest.
to darken one's door
To cross one's threshold: almost entirely used only in a threatening way, as "Don't you dare to darken my door again!
to date
up to the present time
to dawb
To bribe. The cull was scragged because he could not dawb; the rogue was hanged because he could not bribe. All bedawbed with lace; all over lace.
to deliver the goods
Said of one who fulfills his promises or who comes up to expectations.
to desert one's colours
To become a turncoat; to turn tail. The allusion is to the military flag.
to deserve the bauble
To be so foolish as to be qualified to carry the fool's emblem of office.
to diddle
To cheat. To defraud. The cull diddled me out of my dearee; the fellow robbed me of my sweetheart. See Jeremy Diddler In Raising The Wind.
to die
Life is a loan, not a gift, and the debt is paid off by death.
to die for
extremely desirable or appealing
to die game
To maintain a resolute attitude to the last. A phrase from cock-fighting.
to die in harness
To continue in one's work or occupation till death. The allusion is to a horse working in harness until it falls down dead, or to soldiers in armour or harness. At least we'll die with harness on our back.
to die in one's shoes
To die a violent death, especially one on the scaffold.
Advertisement
Ad space — ads help keep Idiomer free. Premium will remove them.