to die like a dog
To have a shameful, or a miserable, end.
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To die like Roland
To die of starvation or thirst. One legend has it that Roland escaped the general slaughter in the defile of Ronces- valles, and died of hunger and thirst in seeking to cross the Pyrenees. He was buried at Blayes, in the church of St. Raymond; but his body was removed afterwards to Roncesvalles.
to dine in the coach
In the captain's private room. The coach or couch of one of the old, large-sized men-of-war was a small apartment near the stern, the floor being formed of the aftmost part of the quarter- deck, and the roof by the poop.
To dine with Mohammed
To die, and dine in paradise. To dine with the cross-legged knights. That is, to have no dinner at all. Cp. "to dine with Duke Humphrey." The knights referred to are the stone effigies of the Temple Church, where, at one time, lawyers met their clients.
to dish up the spurs
In Scotland, during the times of the Border feuds, when any of the great families had come to the end of their provisions the lady of the house sent up a pair of spurs for the last course, to intimate that it was time to put spurs to the horses and make a raid upon England for more cattle.
to do a thing by halves
To do it in a slap- dash manner, very imperfectly.
to do a thing in style
To do it splendidly, regardless of expense.
to do away with
To abolish, put an end to, destroy entirely.
to do for
To act for or manage for. A man ought to do well for his children; a landlady does for her lodgers. Also, to ruin, destroy, wear out. V II do for him. I'll ruin him utterly, or even, I'll kill him; taken in and done for, cheated and fleeced; this watch is about done for, it's nearly worn out.
to do it on one's head
Said of doing some- thing with consummate ease; a rather scornful expression. "I bet you couldn't walk a mile in seven minutes"; "Pooh! I could do it on my head!
to do one proud
To flatter him ; to treat him in an exceptionally lavish and hospitable way.
to do one right
To be perfectly fair to hin% to do him justice. King Charles, and who'll do him right now? BROWNING: Cavalier Tunes.
to do one's level best
To exert oneself to the utmost. This term, and that above, were originally American slang, and came from the gold-diggings of California.
to do over
Carries the same meaning, but is not so briefly expressed: the former having received the polish of the present times.
to do up
To repair, put in order. "This chair wants doing up," i.e. renovating. Also, to make tidy, to put up or fasten a parcel, and to wear out, tire. 'Tm quite done up," I'm worn out, exhausted. Cp. DUP.
to do up brown
To do thoroughly, in a good sense, or bad — as beating someone up badly.
to do with
Recognized English idiom; full definition pending editorial review.
to do with somebody
Common English phrase; full definition pending editorial review.
to do without so-and-so
To deny oneself it, to manage without it.
to dock
To lie with a woman. The cull docked the dell all the darkmans; the fellow laid with the wench all night. Docked smack smooth; one who has suffered an amputation of his penis from a venereal complaint. He must go into dock; a sea phrase, signifying that the person spoken of must undergo a salivation.
to doctor the accounts
To falsify them. The allusion is to drugging wine, beer, etc., and to adulteration generally.
to doctor the wine
To drug it, or strengthen it with brandy; to make weak wine stronger, and "sick" wine more palatable. The fermenta- tion of cheap wines is increased by fermentable sugar. As such wines fail in aroma, connois- seurs smell at their wine.
to dor the dotterel
Dor is an obsolete word meaning to trick or cheat. Whence the phrase means to cheat the simpleton.
to double a cape
Said of a ship that sails round or to the other side of a cape; its course is, as it were, bent back on itself. What capes he doubled, and what continent, The gulfs and straits that strangely he had past. DRYDEN: Ideas, stanza 1.
to double a part
Said of an actor playing two parts in the same piece.
to double and twist
To prevaricate, act evasively, try by tortuous means to extricate oneself from a dilemma or difficulty. The phrase is taken from coursing — a hare "doubles and twists'* in the endeavour to escape from the hounds. In weaving, "to double and twist" is to add one thread to another and twist them together.
to double up
To fold together. "To double up the fist" is to fold the fingers together so as to make the hand into a fist. "To double a person up" is to strike him in the wind, so as to make him double up with pain.
to double-cross
To betray or cheat an associate, more especially an associate in an already shady undertaking.
to down tools
To lay one's tools aside and come out on strike.
to dowse
To take down: as, Dowse the pendant. Dowse your dog vane; take the cockade out of your hat. Dowse the glim; put out the candle.
to draw
To take any thing from a pocket. To draw a swell of a clout. To pick a gentleman's pocket of a handkerchief. To draw the long bow; to tell lies.
to draw a bead on somebody
To take aim at him with a rifle or revolver. The "bead" referred to is the foresight.
to draw a furrow
To plough or draw a plough through a field so as to make a furrow.
to draw a long face
To look dissatisfied or sorrowful, in which case the mouth is drawn down at the corners, the eyes are dejected, and the face has an elongated appearance.
to draw a person out
To entice a person to speak on any subject, to obtain information, to encourage one too shy to talk.
to draw amiss
To take the wrong direction. A hunting term, to draw meaning to follow scent.
to draw blank
To meet with failure in one's pursuit. The allusion is to sportsmen "draw- ing" a covert and finding no game. To draw a blank refers to having no luck in a lottery, sweepstake, etc. To fail in a search.
to draw in one's horns
To retrench, to curtail one's expenditure; to retract, or miti- gate, a pronounced opinion; to restrain pride. The allusion is to the snail.
to draw one's eye-teeth
To take the conceit out of a person; to fleece one without mercy;
to draw rein
To pull up short, to check one's course.
to draw stumps
To mark the final close of a game of cricket the stumps are drawn from the ground and taken away.
to draw the cork
To give one a bloody nose. Cp. CLARET. To draw the King's (or Queen's) picture.
to draw the line
To set a definite limit be- yond which one refuses to go; to impose a restriction on one's behaviour from fear of going too far. "He was utterly unprincipled, but he drew the line at blackmail," i.e. he would stop short at blackmail.
to draw the longbow
To exaggerate. The longbow was the famous English weapon till gunpowder was introduced, and it is said that a good archer could hit between the fingers of a man's hand at a considerable distance, and could propel his arrow a mile. The tales told about longbow adventures, especially in the Robin Hood stones, fully justify the applica- tion of the phrase.
to draw the nail
To release oneself from a vow. It was a custom in Cheshire to register a vow by driving a nail into a tree, swearing to keep your vow as long as it remained there. If you wished to retract, the nail was with- drawn and the vow thereby cancelled.
to dress
To beat. I'll dress his hide neatly; I'll beat him soundly.
To drink at Freeman's Quay
To get one's drink at someone else's expense.
to drink deep
To drink heavily, to excess, or habitually.
to drink like a fish
To drink abundantly or excessively. Many fish swim with their mouths open, thus appearing to be continually drink- ing. The expression is found in Beaumont and Fletcher.
to drink the waters
To take medicinal waters, especially at a spa.
to drive a good bargain
To exact more than is quite equitable. Heaven would no bargain for its blessings drive. — DRYDEN: Astrcea Redux, i, 137.
to drive a roaring trade
To do a brisk business. To drive the swine through the hanks of yarn.
to drive one's hogs to market
To snore very loudly. To hear as a hog in harvest. In at one ear and out at the other; hear without paying attention. Giles Firmin says, "If you call hogs out of the harvest stubble, they will just lift up their heads to listen, and fall to their shack again." {Real Christian, 1670.
to drop a brick
To make a highly tactless remark. Brick-and-mortar franchise. A Chartist phrase for the £10 household system, long since abolished.
to drop in
To make a casual call, not invited; to pay an informal visit.
to drop off
"Friends drop off," fall away gradually. "To drop off to sleep," to fall asleep (especially in weariness or sickness).
to drown the miller
To put too much water into" spirrts, or tea. The idea is that the supply of water is so great that even the miller, who uses a water wheel, is drowned with it.
to drub
To beat any one with a stick, or rope's end: perhaps a contraction of DRY RUB. It is also used to signify a good beating with any instrument.
to drum up
To get together unexpectedly or in an emergency, as "to drum up a meal.
to dup
To open a door: a contraction of DO OPE or OPEN. See DUB.
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