Words

Soft words butter no parsnips. In Scotland an excellent dish is made of parsnips and potatoes beaten up with butter. (See Butter.)

Many words will not—fill a bushel. Mere promises will not help the needy. If we say to a beggar, “Be thou filled,” is he filled?

The object of words is to conceal thoughts. (See Language.)

To have words with one. To quarrel; to have an angry discussion. Other phrases to the same effect are—They exchanged words together; There passed some words between them (in French, “Ils ont en quelques paroles”).

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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.