A Sardonic Smile and with Sardonian smile Laughing at her, his false intent to shade. -SPENSER : Faerie .Queen, v, ix (1596). When a person smiles sardonically, we know well that it is not a smile which emanates from pleasure; rather the contrary. It is one expressing contempt or irony, as when forced to swallow a “bitter pill” of disappointment. John de Trevisa, the 14th-century translator of Higden’s Polychronicon, says, in...

Plain as a Pikestaff “A new game . . . that has no policie nor knaverie, but plaine as a pike-staffe.” -ROBERT GREENE: A Notable Discovery of Coosnage (1591). That is: no hidden, double meaning; but plain, honest, straightforward dealing. Centuries ago, “packmen,” or pedlars of cotton, linen, and woollen cloths, tramped from town to country with their bundles. They carried a staff, which was an aid in walking and a...

In A Scrape “I was generally the leader of the boys, and sometimes led them into serapes.”—FRANKLIN, Autobiography (1771). To “get into a scrape,” in colloquial speech, means: to become involved in any difficult, and perhaps distressful, situation, financially or morally. In all probability, the word “scrape,” like its cognate “scratch,” is onomatopoeic. In its nominative sense, it signifies a hollow formed by deer at certain seasons, in scraping the surface...

At A Pinch “The Israelites send to hire the King of Egypt . . . to help at a pinch.”—BISHOP BROWNRIG (1659). The phrase is as old at least as Caxton, and simply means: if put to the test; if there is no alternative; in the last resort. Emerson, in his English Traits, says of our islanders: “Each of them could, at a pinch, stand in the shoes of the other”;...

Chop and Change “From boy to man, from man to boy, would chop and change degree.” -EARL OF SURREY: How No Age is Content (c. 1540). Literally, this phrase means “shop and exchange”—the words: “chop,” “chap,” “cheap,” and “shop” having the same Teutonic root, and meaning to barter; to get cheaply. A petty chapman, in the Middle Ages, was a pedlar; and Cheapside (London) originally meant “shop side,” or a place...

On Tenterhooks “The King of Morocco may stab his subjects, throw them to the lions, or hang them on tenterhooks.” -PHILIP STONEY: Discovery of Treasonable Faction, etc. (1683). When we read that an author of a thrilling romance is so successful in the unfolding of his plot that be constantly “keeps his readers on tenterhooks,” we know that all he does is so to maintain their interest in his story that...

A Leap in The Dark “No doubt, we are making a great experiment, and taking a leap in the dark.”—EDWARD, 14111 EARL OP DERBY (the celebrated “Rupert of Debate”), House of Lords, August 6, 1867, speaking with reference to the Reform Bill of that year. In the whirligig of time, these words have been bandied about from pillar to post. Colloquially, any “leap in the dark” is a venture into an...

Like Caesar’s Wife-Above Suspicion “The rare red-brown six penny Barbados, un-perforated is not altogether above suspicion.”—Philatclist (January 1, 1867). This phrase is generally used to indicate any person, or action, which, it is felt, ought to be untainted by any moral flaw. The words “above suspicion” have become so much a part of English idiom that they are often used to suggest a shadow of doubt about the genuineness of anything....