A jovial companion; a thief; a roysterer. A pun on the verb to pheese—A-pheeze-ian. Pheeze is to flatter.
“It is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.”
Shakespeare: Merry Wives of Windsor, iv. 5.
· ·
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.
· 
· 
· ·