Rhiʹno

Ready money. (See Nose.) May not this explain the phrase “paying through the nose” (par le nez), that is, paying ready rhino. Rhino = money is very old.

“Some, as I know,

Have parted with their ready rhino.”

The Seaman’s Adieu (1670).

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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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