A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

England see also the CAT, the rat, and Lovell the dog, rule all England under the hog; what MANCHESTER says today, the rest of E ...

potent myth’, the conviction of one European as equal to twenty others. boasting; national characteristics An ENGLISHMAN’s house ...

a man, woman, or child in ten miles round Guildhall, who really believes this saying. 1928 D. H. LAWRENCE Woman who rode Away 16 ...

repent diuine, and to perseuere diuelish. 1659 J. HOWELL Proverbs (French) 12 To erre is humane, to repent is divine, to perseve ...

EVERY man for himself See also the later expanded forms in the next two proverbs. c 1386 CHAUCER Knight’s Tale 1.1182 At the kyn ...

the elephant said when he danced among the chickens. self-preservation EVERY man has his price 1734 W. WYNDHAM in Bee VIII. 97 ‘ ...

chacun à son goût, each to his taste. 1580 LYLY Euphues & his England II. 161 Betweene them it was not determined, but euery ...

1869 F. J. FURNIVALL in Queen Elizabeth’s Academy (EETS) p. xii. The second tract.. is printed, not mainly because ‘John Bull lo ...

Cf. mid 14th-cent. Fr. mais il n’est chose qui ne fine, ne qui ne viengne à son termine, but there is nothing which doesn’t end, ...

Ill doers, ill deemers. 1737 A. RAMSAY Scots Proverbs xix. Ill doers are ay ill dreaders. 1828 SCOTT Fair Maid of Perth II. v. P ...

silly child, was it binding? You mustn’t do evil that good may come of it.. but the boy was only fourteen and practically half-w ...

The EXCEPTION proves the rule ‘The very fact of an exception proves there must be a rule’ (Brewer); now frequently misunderstood ...

M. L. Anderson Proverbs in Scots (1957) no. 540 Fair shifts [exchange] na robberie. 1721 J. KELLY Scottish Proverbs 105 Fair Exc ...

grunt. 1827 SCOTT Journal 10 Apr. (1941) 41 They refuse a draught of £20, because, in mistake, it was £8 overdrawn. But what can ...

proof.. had gotten by greate experience the very mother and mastres of wisedome. 1581 G. PETTIE tr. S. Guazzo’s Civil Conversati ...

Cf. ST. BERNARD Sermon v. All Saints, vulgo dicitur: Quod non videt oculus cor non dolet, it is commonly said: what the eye sees ...

is a picture of the mind as the eyes are its interpreter; L. vultus est index animi (also oculus animi index), the face (also, e ...

F face see don’t CUT off your nose to spite your face; the EYES are the window of the soul. FACT is stranger than fiction An all ...

1545 R. TAVERNER tr. Erasmus’ Adages (ed. 2) 10 A coward verely neuer obteyned the loue of a faire lady. 1580 LYLY Euphues & ...

1809 W. IRVING Hist. New York II. VI. vii. The furious Risingh, in despight of that noble maxim.. that ‘fair play is a jewel’, h ...