This is a list of idioms that were recognizable to literate people in the late 19th century, and have become unfamiliar since. An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not compositional—that is, whose meaning does not follow from the meaning of the individual words of which it is composed. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...

As the article list of idioms in the English language notes, a list of idioms can be useful, since the meaning of an idiom cannot be deduced by knowing the meaning of its constituent words. See that article for a fuller discussion of that an idiom is, and what it is not. In addition, the often obscure references or shared values that lie behind an idiom will themselves lose applicability over time, although the surviving literature of the period relies on their currency for full understanding. A list of idioms can be useful, since the meaning of an idiom cannot be deduced by knowing the meaning of its constituent words. ...

Contents: Top - 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

• Abbot of Misrule – Lord of Misrule.
• Admirable Doctor – Roger Bacon.
• Attic Bee – Sophocles, from the sweetness and beauty of his productions.

The Lord of Misrule, known in Scotland as the Abbot of Unreason and in France as the Prince des Sots was an officer appointed by lot at Christmas to preside over the Feast of Fools. ... Roger Bacon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... A Roman bust of Sophocles. ...

B

• Bidding Prayer – an exhortation to prayer in some special reference, followed by the Lord's Prayer, in which the congregation joins.
• Blue-gown – in Scotland a beggar, a bedesman of the king, who wore a blue gown, the gift of the king, and had his license to beg.
• Bonnet-piece – a gold coin of James V of Scotland, so called from the king being represented on it as wearing a bonnet instead of a crown.
• Brown, Jones, and Robinson – three middle-class Englishmen on their travels abroad, as figured in the pages of Punch.

Prayer is an effort to communicate with God, or to some deity or deities, or another form of spiritual entity, or otherwise, either to offer praise, to make a request, or simply to express ones thoughts and emotions. ... The Lords Prayer (sometimes known by its first two Latin words as the Pater Noster, in Greek as the , or the English equivalent Our Father) is probably the best-known prayer in Christianity. ... A congregation is the group of members who make up a local Christian church or Jewish synagogue (or those who are present at a service thereat), as opposed to the building itself. ... Scotland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Beggars in Samarkand, 1905 Begging includes the various methods used by persons to obtain money, food, shelter, drugs, alcohol, or other things from people they encounter during the course of their travels. ... James V (April 10, 1512 – December 14, 1542) was king of Scotland (September 9, 1513 – December 14, 1542). ... A bonnet is a kind of headgear which is usually brimless. ... Crown (headgear) - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Punch was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire published from 1841 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2002. ...

C

• Chicard – (French loanword) the harlequin of the French carnival, grotesquely dressed up.
• Circumlocution Office – a name employed by Dickens in Little Dorrit to designate the wearisome routine of public business.
• Cockney School – a literary school, inspired by the idea that London is the centre of civilisation.
• Comity of Nations – the name given for the effect given in one country to the laws and institutions of another in dealing with a native of it.
• Corn-cracker – the nickname of a Kentucky man (pejorative).
• Corpuscular Philosophy – the philosophy which accounts for physical phenomena by the position and the motions of corpuscles.
• Cincinnatus of the Americans – George Washington after the original Roman Cincinnatus.
• Conscript Fathers – Translates Latin Patres Conscripti; this is a metonym for members of the Roman Senate.

Arlecchino (also known as Harlequin in English, Arlequin in French) is the most popular of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian Commedia dellArte. ... Swabian-Alemannic carnival clowns in Wolfach, Germany A carnival parade is a public celebration, combining some elements of a circus and public street party, generally during the Carnival Season. ... Dickens was a prolific writer who was almost always working on a new installment for a story and rarely missed a deadline. ... Little Dorrit is a serial novel by Charles Dickens published originally between 1855 and 1857. ... A Cockney, in the loosest sense of the word, is a working-class inhabitant of the East End of London. ... Part of the London skyline viewed from the South Bank London is the most populous city in the European Union, with an estimated population on 1 January 2005 of 7,500,000 and a metropolitan area population of between 12 and 14 million. ... State nickname: Bluegrass State Official languages English Capital Frankfort Largest city Louisville Governor Ernie Fletcher (R) Senators Mitch McConnell (R) Jim Bunning (R) Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 37th 104,749 km² 1. ... Corpuscle is J.J. Thomsons term for a subatomic particle similar to the electron. ... George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was the successful Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), and later became the first President of the United States, an office to which he was elected twice (1789-1797). ... With one hand he returns the fasces, symbol of power as appointed dictator of Rome. ... The Roman Senate (Latin, Senatus) was a deliberative body which was important in the government of both the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. ...

D

• Diamond Necklace – specifically, the one belonging to Marie Antoinette
• Dircaean Swan or Dircæan Swan – Pindar, so called from the fountain Dirce, near Thebes, his birthplace.

Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France and Archduchess of Austria (born November 1755 – executed 16 October 1793) Daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria, wife of Louis XVI and mother of Louis XVII. She was guillotined at the height of the French Revolution. ... Pindar (or Pindarus) (522 BC – 443 BC), objectively the greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece, was born at Cynoscephalae, a village in Thebes. ... For the ancient capital of Upper Egypt, see Thebes, Egypt. ...

F

• Fagot vote – a vote created by the partitioning of a property into as many apartments as will entitle the holders to vote.
• First Gentleman of Europe – George IV of the United Kingdom, from his fine style and manners.
• Federal Union – generally any union of states in which each State has jurisdicition in local matters, such as the United States.

An apartment (or flat) is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building. ... George IV King of the United Kingdom George IV (George Augustus Frederick) (12 August 1762–26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom and Hanover from 29 January 1820. ... A state is an organized political community occupying a definite territory, having an organized government, and possessing internal and external sovereignty. ...

G

• Gehenna Bailiffs – ministers of hell's justice, whose function is to see to and enforce the rights of hell.
• Gens Braccata – the Gauls, from braccæ or breeches.
• Gens Togata – the Romans, from wearing the toga.
• German Voltaire – name given sometimes to Wieland and sometimes to Goethe.
• Goody Two Shoes – a story for children usually attributed to Oliver Goldsmith, and by extension any child who is good to the point of smugness.
• Gothamite – New York equivalent of cockney (still in use in some contexts).

Medieval illustration of Hell in the Hortus deliciarum manuscript of Herrad of Landsberg (about 1180) Hell is, according to many religious beliefs, a place or a state of painful suffering. ... Breeches as worn in America in the latter 18th century: Elijah Boardman by Ralph Earl, 1789. ... Roman clad in toga The toga was the distinctive garb of Ancient Rome. ... Christoph Martin Wieland (September 5, 1733 _ January 20, 1813), was a German poet and writer. ... Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ▶(?) (IPA: ) (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist, philosopher, and for ten years chief minister of state at Weimar. ... Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith (November 10, 1730(?) – April 4, 1774) was an Irish writer and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), his pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770) (written in memory of his brother), and his plays The Good-naturd Man (1768) and She Stoops... State nickname: The Empire State Official languages None. ... A Cockney, in the loosest sense of the word, is a working-class inhabitant of the East End of London. ...

H

• Hectic Fever – a fever connected with tuberculosis, and showing itself by a bright pink flush on the cheeks.
• Horn Gate – the gate of dreams which come true, as distinct from the Ivory Gate, through which the visions seen are shadowy and unreal.

Tuberculosis is an infection with the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects the lungs (pulmonary TB) but can also affect the central nervous system (meningitis), lymphatic system, circulatory system (miliary TB), genitourinary system, bones and joints. ...

I

• In-and-in – breeding of animals from the same parentage.
• Island of Saints – a poetic name given to Ireland in the Middle Ages.
• Ivan Ivanovitch – a term invoking a lazy, good-natured Russian.

The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ...

J

• Jack Brag – a pretender who ingratiates himself with people above him.

O

• The Open Secret – the secret that lies open to all, but is seen into and understood by only few, applied especially to the mystery of the life, the spiritual life, which is the possession of all (Carlyle).

The most familiar view of Carlyle is as the bearded sage with a penetrating gaze. ...

P

• Passing-bell – a bell tolled at the moment of the death of a person to invite his neighbours to pray for the safe passing of his soul.
• Penny wedding – a wedding at which the guests pay part of the charges of the festival.
• Persiflage – a light, quizzing mockery, or scoffing, specially on serious subjects, out of a cool, callous contempt for them.
• Peter Bell – a simple rustic (Wordsworth).
• Petite Nature – a French loanword applied to pictures containing figures less than life-size, but with the effect of life-size.
• Pot-wallopers – a class of electors in a borough who claimed the right to vote on the ground of boiling a pot within its limits for six months.
• Pourparler – a diplomatic conference towards the framing of a treaty.
• Punic Faith – a promise that one can put no trust in.

The bells of St Savas A bell is a simple sound-making device. ... The soul, according to many religious and philosophical traditions, is the ethereal substance — spirit (Hebrew:rooah or nefesh) — particular to a unique living being. ... The examples and perspective in this article do not represent a worldwide view. ... William Wordsworth, English poet William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 – April 23, 1850) was a major English poet who with Samuel Taylor Coleridge launched the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 publication of Lyrical Ballads. ... For the Finno-Ugric people, see Votes. ... A borough is a local government administrative subdivision used in the Canadian province of Quebec, in some states of the United States, and formerly in New Zealand. ... A treaty is a binding agreement under international law concluded by subjects of international law, namely states and international organizations. ...

R

• Revival of Letters – a term for literary aspects of the Renaissance, specifically the revival of the study of Greek literature.

By region Italian Renaissance Spanish Renaissance Northern Renaissance French Renaissance German Renaissance English Renaissance The Renaissance, also known as Il Rinascimento (in Italian), was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. ...

T

• The Temple of Immensity – the universe as felt to be in every corner of it a temple consecrated to worship in.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopaedia. The deepest visible-light image of the cosmos. ... The word temple has different meanings in the fields of architecture, religion, geography, anatomy, and education. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Nuttall Encyclopaedia is an early 20th century encyclopedia, edited by Rev. ...