Holiday Speeches

or Words. Fine or well-turned speeches or phrases; complimentary speeches. We have also “holiday manners,” “holiday clothes,” meaning the best we have.

“Aye, aye, sir. I know your worship loves no holiday speeches.”—Sir W. Scott: Redgauntlet, chap. iii.

“With many holiday and lady terms

He questioned me.”

Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV., i. 3 (Hotspur’s defence).

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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.