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Crossing the Hand

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Fortune-tellers of the gipsy race always bid their dupe to “cross their hand with a bit of silver.” This, they say, is for luck. Of course, the sign of the cross warded off witches and all other evil spirits, and, as fortune-telling belongs to the black arts, the palm is signed with a cross to keep off the wiles of the devil. “You need fear no evil, though I am a fortune-teller, if by the sign of the cross you exorcise the evil spirit.”

 

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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

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Cross-grained
Cross-legged Knights
Cross Man (A)
Cross-patch
Cross-roads
Cross and Ball
Cross and Pile
Cross as a Bear
Cross as the Tongs
Cross as Two Sticks
Crossing the Hand
Crossing the Line
Crotalum
Crotchet
Crotona’s Sage
Crouchback
Crouchmas
Crow
Crow over One (To)
Crowbar
Crowd or Crouth