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Poor Tassel (A)

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A poor hand, a bad workman, no great shakes. The tassel or tiercel was a male goshawk, restricted to princes, and called a “tassel gentle.”

“Venturing this opinion to the brick-maker, he laughingly replied, ‘Come, then, and try your hand at a brick.ʹ The trial, however, proved me a ‘poor tassel,ʹ amidst the jeers and laughter of the men.”—C. Thomson: Autobiography, p. 52.

 

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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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Pons Asinorum
Pontefract Cakes
Pontiff
Pontius Pilate’s Body-Guard
Pony (A)
Poona
Poor
Poor Jack or John (A)
Poor Man
Poor Richard
Poor Tassel (A)
Poorer than Irus (“Iro pauperior”)
Pop the Question (To)
Pope
Pope
Pope
Pope
Pope Joan
Pope’s Sermon (A)
Pope’s Tiara (The)
Popefigland