Prime; best of its kind; as in a crack horse; a crack tailor; ment; &c. Kraak, karaak, an ep lain (earthen ware) and in the sen real, best. Kraak porcelain is the to for genuine China porcelain, and as cation the best of its kind. In course has fallen into general application, as any thing avowedly the best of its so is as karaak (in Spanish caracca, in F and means a large heavy kind of ve merly by the European nations in th merce; and kraak porcelain is as the ware imported in such vessel, and genuine and impliedly the best. Cara a French phrase for the best Cacao to exaggerate, as over-rate, and so t prime something that may not be so above noun. But crack, in the sens purely an onomatopy, and of the sa crash, creak, &c. HE LEFT NO STONE UNTURN He did his best; he did all that dep him. Hij left noó stond ontaend; not a quiet moment; he did not live peace; he had no rest. And, he left turned to do it, is thus as he had no p had done it; he had hardly any quiet till he succeeded in doing it. Leeft, left, the third person present of leeven, leven, to live. Noode, noć, scarcely, hardly. Stond, moment. Taenen, tanen, tenen, to be in agitation, in a state of excitement, both in an active and a deponent sense. Ontaend, as lengthening the already broadly pronounced a by e, sounds unturned. PUNCH. As the liquor known by that name. The same word, I suspect, as Punch in the sense of the mirthpromoting puppet so called. A bowl of punch was once as the mirth-promoting bowl. The one was listened to, the other drank for a same purpose. The origin of the word, as applied to the puppet, has been explained by others. A RIGMAROLE. Trumped up recital; a groundless tale, a tissue of falsehoods; unfounded detail. Arige-maere-al; q. e. all an artful fable; the whole a sly story; a tale invented for no good purpose; an arch fiction. Arrigh, arig, argh, arg, erg, sly, cunning, arch, tricky, malicious. Maere, mare, a fable, a story; and grounded in the thema ma-en, to bind together, to weave, to put together; the source of an extensive race of words. A CAT MAY LOOK AT A KING. The good and the bad must be taken together; no station will exempt from evil. Er guit meé luck het erg inne; q, e. the rogue's fortune includes the chance of a bad end; he that takes up a venturesome trade must stand by the consequences; the fate of the rogue includes the gallows. The term a king has no relation to either the form or the meaning of the expression in the original shape, and is simply a travesty adopted from analogy of sound with erg inne. Guit, rogue. Meé, mede, along with. Luck, chance, fortune. Het erg, that which is bad. Innen, to gather in, to take in, to collect. Arg, erg, arch. "Ye ARCH CHAUCER. WHO WILL BELL THE CAT? Who will undertake this difficult hazardous [infeasible] task, job. Woe'wel beul tije guit; q. e. and though there is a hangman yet you see robbing still goes on; there's a Jack-Ketch to be sure, but the rogue is abroad in spite of him; the executioner dont put an end to thieving. Beul, hangman. Woe, wel, although. Tijen, tijden, to continue on, to keep a same pace, to progress steadily, to go on. Guit, rogue. By implication, to root out roguery is impossible. "You are creating a monster which nobody can controul. WHO WILL BELL THE CAT? Who will take the bull by the horns and subdue him? You cannot controul it, and you might as well try to conquer Gibraltar with a pocket pistol." J. RANDOLPH, SP. IN CONGRESS. HE STARED LIKE A STUCK PIG. In the sense of he became fixed to the spot by surprise; he stood stock still from astonishment; he became motionless by the shock he experienced. Hij sterrd lyck er staeck bij ijck; q. e. he became as fixed as a mile-post; he became as fixed to the spot as a direction-post (a boundary-stake, as a * Artful; spitefully cunning, sly, and thus as power of head opposed to brute power, + Smally provided in relation to stock of understanding. permanent standard). Starren, sterren, to become motionless, to grow stiff. Staeck, a stake, a post, and sounds stuck. Bij ijck, at the mark, at the standard or settled place of the bounds; at the spot which marks the due extent, the regulated distance; defines the space included. PLEASE THE PIGS. I will do it, please the pigs; that is, if I am not obstructed; if I am left to my own free agency; if I have carte blanche. Belies de bij ijcks; q. e. do away with all set marks; all the ready fixed limits; and so leave me to do as I like (think proper); put no restraint upon me by keeping me within any marks or bounds that you may have devised in your own mind. Liesen, beliesen, verliesen, to lose; to leave out of sight, to lose sight of. Bij ijck, as in the preceding article. The double j produces the sound of ee with us, and the ch sound as g. B and p represent intermutating sounds. A WILL-OF-THE-WISP. Er! wild af de wijse 'p; q.e. there! a spontaneous production which lights forwards; there! you see a natural product which points out the way forwards; a meteor which keeps on before you. Wild, naturally produced, resulting from nature alone, a spontaneous effect [self-produced]. D is paragogical and has here no more sound than it had in our word plumb now spelt plum. Af, off, from, in which direction this meteor always moves. Opwijsen, to point out, to shew, to point towards; the preposition is here postponed to the verb according to Dutch syntax; and wijse'p is as wijse op in the potential mood, and sounds wisp. A wisp, as in the phrase a wisp of hay, is the same word, and means a sample of hay; that which is taken at a single grasp to show [point out] its quality. A wisp of hay [straw] was as so much taken at once to shew; and the sub sequent use of it by the groom had n etymology. Wild, wold, are as พ walld, gewalld, the past particip wallen, to spring up, to rise out nat water in the well [fountain] or in the other produce of the earth. And wold are as portions of the land cover taneous produce, be it grass, heath, of any other kind. A wild fire, is a n taneous light or heat. In Will-of-t the sense of that which directs on, th being a light, as well of its being see Wild, in the sense of irregular, out fickle, uncouth, strange, unusual; as w his looks [actions] were quite wild, of wie yld; q. e. like one delirious, mind, feverish; and has no relation to other use in regard to source. "Pride of the table appereth also full ofte, menne be called to festes, and pore folke and rebuked. And also in excesse of divers me and namely such maner bake metes and dishe n of WILDE FIREt, peynted and castelled with blable waste, so that it is abusion to thinke." CHAUCER. "I am no more, but here outcast of all w daie of my deth, or els to se the sight that WELLYNGE sorowes voide, and of the floder CHAUCER JOHNSON spells the above term wron dently thought the will in it was as abbreviation of William, or a travesty + Heat caused by a natural product as s wild-fire as the pyrotechnical term is simply second sense, viz. an irregular fire, one for no di but applicable to the setting fire to more regula such as are destined to fixed purposes. Boiling up, springing up. |