Sleeveless Errand
. A fruitless errand. It should be written sleaveless, as it comes from sleave, ravelled thread, or the raw-edge of silk. In Troilus and Cressida, Thersiʹtës the railer calls Patroclus an “idle immaterial skein of sleive silk” (v. 1).
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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.