W.C. Hazlitt, comp. English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases. 1907.
At marriages to Better lost
At marriages and burials, friends and kinsfolk be known.
At my tongue’s end,
Harvey’s New Letter of Notable Contents, 1593, repr. 14. Another form is, On the tip of one’s tongue.
At Nevermass.
i.e., never. Interlude of Thersites, about 1550, ed. 1848, p. 85.
At one’s fingers’ ends.
At open doors dogs come in.
At sixes and sevens.
Nares (Glossary, 1859, in v.) derives the expression, which is found in several old writers, from the game of backgammon, in which it is bad play to leave single men exposed to six and seven. Moor (Suffolk Words, p. 353) thinks this a “very fair” reason: I think it a very far-fetched one.
At St. Mathee shut up the bee.
At the door of the fold, words; within the fold, an account.
At the end I might put my winning in my eye and see never the worse.
At the end of the work you may judge of the workman.
At the first hand buy, / at the third let lie.
At the game’s end we shall see who gains.
Autumnal agues are long or mortal.
Away goes the devil when he finds the door shut against him.
Away the mare, quoth Walis.
Doctour Double Ale (Hazlitt’s Pop. Poetry, iii. 317). In the Frere and the Boye (ibid. p. 62), it is said of the Boy—
Away went Pilgarlick.
In 1619 appeared a tract by J. T. of Westminster, doubtless John Taylor, called The Hunting of the Pox: A pleasant Discourse betweene the Authour and Pild-Garlike, which I describe from the Heber copy, but which I have not yet seen. I conclude Pild Garlick to stand here for a victim of the disease; but from an extract below the term seems to have subsequently acquired a secondary and less definite meaning.
“There was one Master Rule rost a cooke that owed me almost a hundred pounds, who no sooner heard of this strict command against the selling of meat on Sundayes, but hee hanged a padlooke on the door, and away went Pilgarlicke.” Lamentable Complaints of Hop the Brewer, &c., 1641, sign. A 3 back.
Away with it, quoth Washington.
This is the title of a broadside published in 1660, and Pepys mentions twice about that date a Purser named Washington. John Washington, grandfather of the first American President, and of the family of Washington seated at Sulgrave, co. Northampton, near Weedon, seems to be the person here referred to. There was another branch, however, residing at Washington Hall, co. Durham. There is extant a manuscript document of 42 Elizabeth by Robert Washington and Elizabeth his wife to Robert Spenser, executor of Sir John Spenser, for £20 of current English money, sealed with the Washington arms, argent, two bars gules, in chief three mullets of the same. The phrase appears to be referred to in Witts Recreations, 1640, repr. 217.
Awe makes Dun draw.
Bacchus hath drowned more men than Neptune.
Bachelors’ wives and maids’ children be well taught.
Back with that leg.
Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow.
Heywood’s Prov. 1562; Ralph Royster Doister, 1566; Wager’s Repentance of Mary Magdalene, 1566. The word Backare has been adopted by Shakespeare (Taming of the Shrew, ii. 1). The meaning of the phrase seems to be, to back out of anything.
Backbiting oftener proceeds from pride than malice.
Backwards and forwards, like Boscastle fair. Cornw.
Notes and Queries, 3rd S., v. 275. They also say: All play and no play, like Boscastle fair, which begins at 12 o’clock, and ends at noon.
Bad guides may soon mislead.
Bad is a bad servant, but ’tis worse being without him.
Bad luck often brings good luck.
Bad priests bring the devil into the church.
Bad words find bad acceptance.
Bad words make a woman worse.
Bakerly knee’d.
The Passionate Morrice, 1593, repr. 82.
Banbury veal, cheese and cakes.
Banbury cakes are still famous; Banbury cheese has not a very good character, although Southey in a letter of 1793 brackets it with Oxford brawn. The town used to be celebrated also for its varied sectarianism, which is mentioned in Braithwaite’s Barnabæ Itinerarium, 1638, and Wild’s Iter Boreale, 1660.
Harvey, in his Letter Book, 1573–80, 4
Barberry incense.
A chastisement.
“Mans.When, Maud, with a pestilence! what, mak’st thou no haste?
Of barberry incense belike thou wouldest taste!”—Appius and Virginia, 1575 (Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 119).
Bare walls make giddy housewives.
i.e., Idle housewives, they have nothing whereabout to busy themselves, and shew their good housewifery. We speak this in excuse of the good woman, who doth, like St. Paul’s widow, [Greek], gad abroad a little too much, or that is blamed for not giving the entertainment that is expected, or not behaving herself as other matrons do. She hath nothing to work upon at home; she is disconsolate, and therefore seeketh to divert herself abroad: she is inclined to be virtuous, but discomposed through poverty. Parallel to this, I take to be that French proverb, Vuides chambres font les dames folles, which yet Mr. Cotgrave thus renders: Empty chambers make women play the wanton; in a different sense.—R.
Bare words buy no barley.
Barefooted men must not go among thorns.
Barking dogs bite not the sorest.
“A Pleasant Conceyted Comedie of George a Greene, &c.,” 1599, sign. E 3. A more modern form of the saying is, “Barking dogs seldom bite.”
Barking dogs do not most bite.
Interlude of Thersites, about 1550, edit. 1848, p. 87.
Barley straw’s good fodder when the cow gives water.
Barney Cassel [Barnard Castle], the last place that God made. North.
Base terms are bellows to a slackening fire.
Bate me an ace, quoth Bolton.
Sir Thomas More, a play, circa 1590, p. 18; Damon and Pithias, 1571, Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv.; Hey for Honesty, &c., 1651, p. 15. In Heywood’s Fayre Mayde of the Exchange, 1607, Moll Derry says, “Bate an ace of that.” The common story is, that John Heywood presented to Queen Elizabeth his collection of proverbs, stating that every proverb was there, whereupon the Queen inquired if he had Bate me an ace, quoth Bolton. He found that he had not. But in Cotton MS. Julius, F. x. (quoted by Warton, H. E. P. 1824, iii. 376), this identical anecdote is given to Heywood and the old Marquis of Winchester.
The sense of the proverb seems to be simply,—Do not expect me to believe all that. An American correspondent writes: “Bate me an ace,” seems to be plainly: abate for me a trifle. Aside from Dryden’s use of ace: “I’ll not wag an ace farther,” ‘abate for me one’ would not be unnatural remonstrance at a boast about numbers. ‘I shot two hundred buffalo,’ says A. ‘Won’t you take one off that?’ answers B.”
Bawds and attorneys, like andirons, the one holds the sticks, the other their clients, till they consume. Howell.
Bayard bites on the bridle.
A C. Mery Talys, 1525, No. xxi. Compare Towneley Mysteries, p. 25, and Tottels Misc. 1557, p. 120, repr. 1867. In the first quoted passage the meaning is satirical.
Gower (Confessio Amantis, ed. Pauli, i. 334) has the expression “to chew upon the bridle,” in the sense in which it is intended in the C. Mery Talys, where a horse is pulled up sharp, as we should say, and chafes at the bit—
Be as be may, be is no banning.
Davies, however (Scourge of Folly, 1611, p. 141), puts it differently: “Be as he may, no banning is.”
Be bold, but not too bold.
Be content; the sea hath fish enough.
Be fair-conditioned, and eat bread with your pudding.
Be good and refrain not to be good.
Be just to all, but trust not all.
Be merry and wise.
John Heywood, and Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister (1566), princip.
Be more for worship than for pride.
How the Goode Wif, &c. in Hazlitt’s Pop. Poetry, i.
Be not a baker if your head be of butter.
New Help to Discourse, ed. 1721, p. 134.
Be not idle, and you shall not be longing.
Be not too hasty to outbid another.
Be of good cheer, man, and let the world pass.
Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister (1566).
Be sure of hay till the end of May.
Beads about the neck, and the devil in the heart.
Bean-belly Leicestershire.
“So called from the great plenty of that grain growing therein. Yea, those of the neighbouring counties used to say merrily, Shake a Leicestershire man by the collar, and you shall hear the beans rattle in his belly. But those yeomen smile at what is said to rattle in their bellies, when they know good silver ringeth in their pockets.”—R. In a poem on the characteristics of Counties in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ii. 41, the peculiarity of Leicestershire has not been overlooked:—
Bear wealth, poverty will bear itself.
Bear with evil and expect good.
Beat the dog before the lion.
Beauty draws more than five yokes of oxen.
New Help to Discourse, ed. 1721, p. 134.
Beauty is but a blossom.
Beauty is but skin-deep.
Beauty is no inheritance.
Beauty is potent, but money is omnipotent.
Beauty is the subject of a blemish.
Beauty may have fair leaves but bitter fruit.
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
Beauty will buy no beef.
Beauty without bounty avails nought.
Bedworth beggars.
Bees that have honey in their mouths have stings in their tails.
Before one can say Jack Robinson.
Compare Halliwell’s Archaic Dictionary, 1860, v. Jack Robinson. The “old play” there cited is rather questionable.
Before the cat can lick her ear.
Nay, you were not quite out of heating e’re the cat could lick her ear.—Ovidius Exulaus, 1673, p. 50.
As to the saying itself, it is perhaps unnecessary to observe that it is of no great antiquity; and, moreover, its truth is more than dubious. The Tollemaches, as may be supposed, do not occur in Doomsday Book as owners of Bentley, and the name is evidently not Saxon. Suckling, in his History of Suffolk, 1846–8, does not take in the Tollemaches.
Before you make a friend, eat a bushel of salt with him.
Beggars breed, and rich men feed.
New Help to Discourse, 1721, 134. The insinuation may be that the luxury among the upper classes sometimes proves the cause of the extinction of a family.
Beggars can never be bankrupts.
Beggars fear no rebellion.
Beggars mounted run their horses to death.
Beggars should be no choosers.
“The French say, Borrowers must be no choosers.”—R. See Fletcher’s Scornful Lady, 1616 (Dyce’s B. and F. iii. 102).
Begin at home.
Compare the more modern phrase, Charity begins, &c. Clarke, however, has both forms.
Behind before, before behind, a horse is in danger to be pricked.
Behind doors.
“He begot behind doors” seems to have been a phrase understood of a child irregularly born. See Aubrey’s Letters, &c., 1813, ii. 341, where the expression is applied to Erasmus.
Being on sea, sail; being on land, settle.
Believe well, and have well.
This is simply the Latin, Crede quod habes, et habes.
Bell, book, and candle.
Bells call others, but themselves enter not into the church.
Below the salt.
Spoken of a person who sits at the lower end of the table at a dinner. The Innholders’ Company possesses a fine silver salt cellar, which is placed on their table at banquets to separate, the court from the Livery, etc., where it is more than a court dinner.
Benefits bind. Draxe.
Benefits, like flowers, please most when they are fresh.
Best dealing with an enemy, when you take him at his weakest.
Best is best cheap, if you hit not the nail.
Best shane (soon) as syne (late). Irish.
Best to bend while it is a twig.
Bestow on me what you will, so it be none of your secrets.
Betimes in the fishmarket and late in the butchery.
Better a bad excuse than none at all.
“Better (they say) a badde scuse than none.”—Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister, edit. 1847, p. 80.
Better a bare foot than none.
Better a beast sold than bought.
Better a clout than a hole out.
Better a fair pair of heels than a halter.
Better a finger off than wagging.
Better a good word than a battle.
Better a laying hen nor [than] a lym crown.
Better a lean jade than an empty halter.
We have many proverbs to this import: Better some of the pudding than none of the pie, &c.—R.
Better a lean peace than a fat victory.
Better a little fire to warm us than a great one to burn.
Better a little well kept than a great deal forgotten. Latimer, 1549.
Better a louse in the pot than no flesh at all.
The Scotch proverb saith, a mouse, which is better sense; for a mouse is flesh, and edible.—R.
Better a master be feared than despised.
Better a mischief than an inconvenience.
That is, better a present mischief that is soon over, than a constant grief and disturbance. Not much unlike to that, Better eye out than always aching. The French have a proverb, in sense contrary to this: Il faut laisser son enfant morveux plûtost que luy arracher le nez. Better endure some small inconvenience than remove it with a great mischief.—R.
Better a portion in a wife than with a wife.
Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
Better abridge petty charges than stoop to petty gettings.
Better an egg in peace than an ox in war.
Better an empty house than an ill tenant.
Better are meals many, than one too merry.
Better are small fish than an empty dish.
Better be a cuckold and not know it, than be none and everybody say so.
Better be alone than in bad company.
In all the modern collections, for warling they read snarling. “Wives are young men’s mistresses, and old men’s nurses.”—B
Better be envied than pitied.
This is a saying in most languages, although it hath little of the nature of a proverb in it. [Greek]. Herodot. in Thalia. [Greek]. Pindar. Piu tosto invidia che compassione. Ital.—R.
Better be half hanged than ill wed.
Better be ill spoken of by one before all, than by all before one.
Better be John Tomson’s man than Ringan Dinn’s or John Knox’s.
i.e., better be complaisant to your wife’s humours than be scolded or beaten by her. The last names are phonetic. Comp. John Tomson’s man.
Better be lucky born than a rich man’s son.
Better be poor and live than rich and perish.
Better be the head of a pike than the tail of a sturgeon.
Better be the head of an ass than the tail of a horse.
This proverb varies, and there are several other forms of it.
Better be the head of the yeomanry than the tail of the gentry.
“Il vaut mieux etre le premier de sa race que le dernier. Fr.”—R. The Italians and other nations have the same idea embodied in adages.
Better be unmannerly than troublesome.
Better be up to the ankles than over head and ears.
Better believe it than go where it was done to prove it.
Veglio piu tosto crederlo, che andar a cercalo. Ital.—R.
Better belly burst than good drink lost.
Better bend the neck than bruise the forehead.
Better bid the cooks nor [than] the mediciners.
The modern phrase is: Better pay the butcher than the doctor.
Better buy than borrow.
Better children weep than old men.
Better cut the shoe than pinch the foot.
Better die a beggar than live a beggar.
Better direct well than work hard.
Better do it than wish it done.
Better eye out than alway ache.
Better eye sore than all blind, quoth Hendyng.
Proverbs of Hendyng (Rel. Antiq. i. 110).
Better fare hard with good men than feast with bad.
Better fed than taught.
Better fill a glutton’s belly than his eye.
Les yeux plus grands que le pance. Fr. Piu tosto si satolla il ventre che l’ occhio. Ital.—R.
Better give a shilling than lend half a crown.
Better give an apple than eat it, quoth Hendyng.
P. of H. (Rel. Antiq. i. 111). Betere is appel y-[char.]eve then y-ete.
Better go about than fall in the ditch.
Mas vale rodear que no ahogar.—Span.
Better go away longing than loathing.
Better God than gold.
Better good afar off than ill at hand.
Better half a loaf than no bread.
Better half an egg than an empty shell.
Better hand loose than in an ill tethering.
Better have an old man to humour than a young rake to break your heart.
Better have it than hear of it.
Better have one plough going than two cradles.
Better hazard once than be always in fear.
Better hold out nor [than] put out.
Better keep now than seek anon.
Better known than trusted.
Better late ripe and bear, than early blossom and blast.
Better late than never.
Il vaut mieux tard que jamais. Fr.—R. “Yet because the proverbe ys, ‘beter late than never,’ I holde yt better to speak of yt here then not at all.”—Thynne’s Animadversions, edit. Furnivall, p. 71.
Better leave than lack.
Better loping than lifting. Irish.
“Loping,” is “being in high spirits”; “Lifting,” is “removing a coffin.”—Mr. Hardman in Notes and Queries.
Better lose a jest than a friend.
Better lost than found.