star is a in the tail
Preserved but no longer current.
See CYNOSURE, Ursula, St. Ursula was a C9rnish princess and, as the story says, was going to France with eleven thousand companions when the galley was driven by adverse winds to Cologne, where they were all massacred by the Huns. Nothing at all is known of these maidens beyond the fact that they were martyrs at Cologne before the 4th century.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “star is a in the tail” mean?
See CYNOSURE, Ursula, St. Ursula was a C9rnish princess and, as the story says, was going to France with eleven thousand companions when the galley was driven by adverse winds to Cologne, where they were all massacred by the Huns. Nothing at all is known of these maidens beyond the fact that they were martyrs at Cologne before the 4th century.
Is “star is a in the tail” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.