Phrases and names, their origins and meanings / by Trench H. Johnson.

  • Johnson, Trench H.
Date:
[1906]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Phrases and names, their origins and meanings / by Trench H. Johnson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    by the fact that the maiden name of Mrs Masham, the waiting-woman of Queen Anne, was Abigail Hill. Abingdon. A corruption of Abbendon, the town of abbeys, being a place famed for religious houses far back in Anglo-Saxon days. Abingdon Street. From the ancient town residence of the Earls of Abingdon. Abney Park. From Abney House, now a Conservative Club, the residence of Sir Thomas Abney, Lord Mayor of London. Dr Isaac Watts passed away at Abney House in 1748. Abode of Love. See “ Agapemonites.” Abolitionists. The party sworn to the total and im- mediate abolition of slavery in the United States. Above Board. Open, not playing an underhanded game. The owners of the gaming-tables on a race-course un- suspectedly regulated the issue of the spinning hand on the board by means of a treadle. Abraham Newlands. Bank of England notes, so called from the signature they bore early in the last century. Absinthe. From the Greek apsnithion, wormwood. Absquatulate. A Far-West Americanism. A squatter who suddenly left his claim was said to have absquatu- lated. Abyssinia. The country of the Abassins, or “ mixed races.” Academy. From the garden of Academus, where Plato taught his disciples; called on this account the Aca- demics, or Academic School of Philosophy. According to Cocker. Strictly correct. After Edward Cocker of Paul’s Chain, who published a most popular arithmetic. According to Gunter. An expression much used in America for anything done properly and systematically. The allusion is to Edmund Gunter, the celebrated mathematician, who invented a chain and scale for measuring.
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