- skip - Brewer’s

Fox

.

An Old English broadsword.

⁂ A correspondent of Notes and Queries (May 2nd, 1891, p. 356) says: “The swords were manufactured by Julian del Rei of Tolēdo, whose trade-mark was a little dog, mistaken for a fox.” The usual derivation is the Latin falx, French fauchon, our falchion.

“O signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,

Except, O signieur, thou do give to me

Egregious ransom.”


Shakespeare: Henry V., iv. 4.


“I had a sword, ay, the flower of Smithfield for a sword, a right foxfaith.”—Two Angry Women of Abington (1599).

 

previous entry · index · next entry

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.

previous entry · index · next entry

Four Masters
Fourierism
Fourierists
Fourteen
Fourteen Hundred (A Stock Exchange warning)
Fourth Estate of the Realm (The)
Fourth of July (The)
Fowler (Henry the Fowler)
Fox (The old)
Fox
Fox
Fox (To)
Fox-fire
Fox-tail
Fox’s Sleep (A)
Foxed
Foxglove
Foxites
Foxy
Fra Diavolo (Michele Pozza)
Fracassus