1717. Entertainer, Nov. 6 [quoted in N. & Q., 7 S., vi., 66]. Nor, which is ten times worse, Free-thinkers, Atheists, Anythingarians.
1738. Swift, Polite Conversation (conv. i.).
Lady Sm. What religion is he of?
Lady Sp. Why, he is an anythingarian.
Lady Ans. I believe he has his religion to chuse, my lord.
1849. C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. xxii. They made puir Robbie Burns an anythingarian with their blethers.
Anythingarianism, subs. (popular).--The
creed or doctrine of
an Anythingarian.--[See preceding].
1851. C. Kingsley (Life, i., 215). Schiller's 'Gods of Greece' expresses, I think, a tone of feeling very common, and which finds its vent in modern Neo-Platonism--Anythingarianism.
Anything Else.--See Not doing
anything else.
Anywhere Down There! (tailors').--If,
in a workroom or elsewhere
where tailors congregate, an
article is dropped upon the floor,
anywhere down there! is
used as a kind of catch-phrase.
Apartments. To have apartments
to let, verb. phr. (popular).--1.
To take rank in the
estimation of one's fellows as an
idiot; 'a born fool'--one who is
empty-headed, not furnished
with brains.
English Synonyms. To be dotty; to have a screw loose; to be balmy; to have a bee in one's bonnet (Scotch); to be off one's chump; to have no milk in the cocoa-nut; to be touched; to be balmy in one's crumpet; to be wrong in the upper storey; to have rats in the upper storey; to have a tile loose; to be half baked.
French Synonyms. Avoir une écrevisse dans la tourte, or dans le vol-au-vent (popular: that is 'to have a crawfish in the pie,' or 'in the head.' Cf., 'to have rats in the upper storey'); avoir la boule détraquée (popular: lit. 'to have one's ball turned'); avoir le coco félé (popular: lit. 'to have one's cocoa nut cracked.' In English slang the head is also called a 'cocoa-nut'); avoir le trognon détraquée (popular: 'to have a bee in one's bonnet.' Trognon is also a slang term for the head or 'noddle'); avoir un asticot dans la noisette (popular: lit. 'to have a maggot in one's nut.' In English slang the head is likewise 'the nut.' Cf., also the expression 'a worm in the bud'); avoir un bœuf gras dans le char (popular); avoir un cancrelat dans la boule (popular: lit. 'to have a cockroach in one's ball'--'ball' here refering[** referring] to the head or 'nut.' Cancrelat is properly kakerlac or American cockroach); avoir un hanneton dans le reservoir (popular: lit. 'to have a May-bug' or 'cockchafer in one's cistern' or 'well.' This seems to be on all fours with 'a bee in one's bonnet.' The phrase sometimes runs avoir un hanneton dans le plafond, i.e., to have a cockchafer in one's ceiling, and here the analogy between the two phrases is more clearly marked); avoir un moustique dans la boite au sel (popular: lit. 'to have a mosquito in the salt-box or cellar'); avoir un voyageur dans l'omnibus (popular); avoir une araignée dans le plafond (popular: lit. 'to have a spider in'[** ' after head?] the head; plafond, 'a ceiling,' be it noted is a slang term for 'the
