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King’s Keys

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The crow-bars, hatchets, and hammers used by sheriffsʹ officers to force doors and locks. (Law phrase.)

“The door, framed to withstand attacks from exciseman, constables, and other personages, considered to use the king’s keys … set his efforts at defiance.”—Sir W. Scott: Redgauntlet, chap. xix.

 

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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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King of the World (Shah-Jehan)
King of the World
King Chosen by the Neighing of a Horse (A)
King Over the Water (The)
King’s [or Queen’s] Bench
King’s Cave
King’s Chair
King’s Crag
King’s Cross
King’s Evil
King’s Keys
King’s Men
King’s Mess (The)
King’s Oak (The)
King’s Picture
King’s Quhair
King’s Cheese goes half in Paring
King’s Hanoverian White Horse (The)
King’s Own Scottish Borderers (The)
Kings
Kings, etc., of England