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Conʹstable

(Latin, comēs-stabʹuli) means “Master of the Horse.” The constable of England and France was at one time a military officer of state, next in rank to the crown.

To overrun or outrun the constable. To get into debt; spend more than one’s income; to talk about what you do not understand. (See below.)

“Quoth Hudibras, Friend Ralph, thou hast

Outrun the constable at last;

For thou hast fallen on a new

Dispute, as senseless as untrue.”


Butler: Hudibras, i. 3.

Who’s to pay the constable? Who is to pay the score?

The constable arrests debtors, and, of course, represents the creditor; wherefore, to overrun the constable is to overrun your credit account. To pay the constable is to give him the money due, to prevent an arrest.

 

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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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Conscious Water
Conscript Fathers
Consentes Dii
Consenting Stars
Conservative
Consistory (A)
Consolidated Fund (The)
Consols
Consort
Conspirators
Constable
Constable de Bourbon
Constantine Tolman (Cornwall)
Constantine’s Cross
Constituent Assembly
Constituents
Constitution
Constitutions of Clarendon
Construe
Consuelo
Contango

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Outrun the Constable

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Constable