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Lutestring

.

A glossy silk; a corruption of the French word lustrine (from lustre).

To speak in lutestring. Flash, highly-polished oratory. The expression was first used in Junius. Shakespeare has “taffeta phrases and silken terms precise.” We call inflated speech “fustian” (q.v.) or “bombast” (q.v.); say a man talks stuff; term a book or speech made up of other men’s brains, shoddy (q.v.); sailors call telling a story “spinning a yarn,” etc. etc.

 

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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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Lupus in Fabula
Lurch
Lush
Lusiad or The Lusiads
Lusitania
Lusitanian Prince
Lustral Water
Lustrum
Lusus
Lusus Naturæ
Lutestring
Lutetia
Luther’s Hymn
Lutherans
Lutin
Luxembergers
Luz or Luez
Lybius (Sir)
Lycaonian Tables [Lycaoniæmensæ]
Lycidas
Lycisca (half-wolf, half-dog)