A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

hanging see also CATCHING’S before hanging; there are more WAYS of killing a dog than hanging it. ha’porth see do not spoil the ...

he passes the end of his life without suffering grief; OVID Metamorphoses iii. 135 dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo .. debet, nob ...

words, if you please, but they break no bones. 1882 BLACKMORE Christowell III. xvi. ‘Scoundrel, after all that I have done—.’ ‘H ...

WEYMAN Great House xxvii. Tell me the story from the beginning. And take time. More haste, less speed, you know. 1993 ‘C. AIRD’ ...

hatched see don’t COUNT your chickens before they are hatched. hate see BETTER a dinner of herbs than a stalled ox where hate is ...

HAWKS will not pick out hawks’ eyes 1573 J. SANFORDE Garden of Pleasure 104 One crowe neuer pulleth out an others eyes. 1817 SCO ...

Be ware and wyse, and lye nought .. and haue thy will. 1623 J. WODROEPHE Spared Hours of Soldier 276 Heare all, see all, and hol ...

States’ to the category of those favoured or in need of special protection. 1861 T. HUGHES Tom Brown at Oxford I. xii. Heaven, t ...

no fury like a woman scorned,’ Laura L. Martin, Calvert deputy state’s attorney, told jurors yesterday at Freeman’s trial on a f ...

Early uses of the proverb refer specifically to women. 1713 ADDISON Cato IV. i. When love once pleads admission to our hearts .. ...

high. c 1594 BACON Promus 102 He doth like the ape that the higher he clymbes the more he shows his ars. 1670 J. RAY English Pro ...

hold see what you HAVE, hold. Holdfast see BRAG is a good dog, but Holdfast is better. When you are in a HOLE, stop digging 1988 ...

home HOME is where the heart is 1870 J. J. MCCLOSKEY in Goldberg & Heffner Davy Crockett & Other Plays (1940) 79 ‘As I a ...

1605 E. SANDYS Europx Speculum K3 This over-politick .. order may reach a note higher than our grosse conceipts, who think hones ...

phrase to all three of them: every professional criminal they’d known would sell his sidekick unhesitatingly if the price were r ...

HOPE for the best and prepare for the worst 1565 NORTON & SACKVILLE Gorboduc I. ii. Good is I graunt of all to hope the best ...

not for hope, the heart would breake. 1748 RICHARDSON Clarissa VI. xxix. No harm in hoping, Jack! My uncle says, Were it not for ...

horseback see set a BEGGAR on horseback, and he’ll ride to the Devil. HORSES for courses Originally an expression in horse-racin ...

Of similar vintage is LEARNING is better than house and land. 1752 S. FOOTE Taste I. i. It has always been my Maxum..to give my ...

1483 CAXTON Cato B6V As hunger chaceth the wolfe out of the wode thus sobrete [sobriety] chaseth the deuyl fro the man. 1591 J. ...