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Bottle-holder

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One who gives moral but not material support. The allusion is to boxing or prize-fighting, where each combatant has a bottle-holder to wipe off blood, refresh with water, and do other services to encourage his man to persevere and win.

“Lord Palmerston considered himself the bottle-holder of oppressed States… . He was the steadfast partisan of constitutional liberty in every part of the world.”—The Times.

 

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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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Bostal
Botanomancy
Botany
Botch
Bother
Bothie System
Botley Assizes
Bottes
Bottle
Bottle-chart
Bottle-holder
Bottle-imps
Bottle-washer (Head)
Bottled Beer
Bottled Moonshine
Bottom
Bottom (Nick)
Bottomless
Botty
Boucan
Bouders