1894 Brewer’s / L / Lemures
The spirits of the dead. Good lemʹures were called Lares, but bad ones Larvæ, spectres who wandered about at night-time to terrify the living. (Ovid Fasti, v.)
“The lars and lemures moan with midnight plaint.”
Milton: Ode on the Nativity.
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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.