Pledge

I pledge you in this wine—i.e. I drink to your health or success.

“Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine.”

Ben Jonson (translated from Philostratus) second century.

To pledge. To guarantee. Pledging a drinker’s security arose in the tenth century, when it was thought necessary for one person to watch over the safety of a companion while in the act of drinking. It was by no means unusual with the fierce Danes to stab a person under such circumstances.

“If I

Were a huge man, I should fear to drink at meals,

Lest they should spy my windpipe’s dangerous notes.

Great men should drink with harness on their throats.”

Timon of Athens, i. 2.

· ·

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.