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Soap

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An English form of savon, the French for soap.

How are you off for soap? (for money or any other necessity). The insurgent women of Paris, in February, 1793, went about crying, “Du pain et du savon!” (bread and soap).

“A deputation of washwomen petitioned the Convention for soap, and their plaintive cry was heard round the Salle de Manège, ‘Du pain et du savon!ʹ”—Carlyle: French Revolution, pt. iii. bk. iii. 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.

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Snob
Snood
Snooks
Snore
Snow King
Snowdonia
Snowdrop (The)
Snuff
Snuff Out
Soane Museum
Soap
Soap (Castile)
Soaped-pig Fashion (In)
Soapy Sam
Sober or Sobrius
Sober as a Judge—i.e. grave and sedate
Sobrino (in Orlando Furioso)
Sobriquet (French)
Socialism
Société de Momus
Society