- skip - Brewer’s

Spick and Span New

.

Quite and entirely new. A spic is a spike or nail, and a span is a chip. So that a spick and span new ship is one in which every nail and chip is new. Halliwell mentions “span new.” According to Dr. Johnson, the phrase was first applied to cloth just taken off the spannans or stretchers. (Dutch, spikspelderniew.)

 

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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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Spelter
Spence
Spencer
Spendthrift
Spenser (Edmund)
Spenserian Metre (The)
Spent
Spheres
Sphinx (The Egyptian)
Spice
Spick and Span New
Spider
Spidireen or Spidereen
Spigot
Spilt Milk
Spindle-half
Spinning Jenny
Spinoza’s System
Spinster
Spirit
Spirit-writing