head'); avoir une grenouille dans l'aquarium (popular: lit: 'to have a frog in one's aquarium'); avoir une hirondelle dans le soliveau (popular: 'to have a swallow in the head'); avoir une Marseillaise dans le Kiosque (popular); avoir une punaise dans le soufflet (popular: 'to have a bug in one's brain'); avoir une sardine dans l'armoire à glace (popular: 'to have a sardine in the head or brain.' Armoire à glace = the head); avoir une trichinne dans le jambonneau (popular: jambonneau, the head); avoir une sauterelle dans la guitare (popular: lit. 'to have a grasshopper in the guitar').
For other synonyms, see Tile loose.
2. A widow is said to have apartments to let.
Ape-leader, subs. (old).--An old
maid. Leading apes in hell
was the employment jocularly
assigned to those who neglected
to assume marital functions
while living.
1581. Lyly, Euphucs (Arb.), 87. Rather thou shouldest leade a lyfe to thine owne lyking in earthe, than ... leade apes in hell. [m.]
1605. Lond. Prodigal, I. , 2. 'Tes an old proverb, and you know it well, that women dying maids lead apes in hell.
1717. Mrs. Centlivre, Bold Stroke, II., 1. Poor girl; she must certainly lead apes, as the saying is.
1880. General P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), I., 198. Joining with other old women, in leading their apes in Tartarus. [m.]
There are several proverbial sayings in which the ape plays an important part. To say an ape's paternoster is to chatter with cold; this corresponds with the French, dire des patenôtres de singe. To put an ape into one's hood or cap, to make a fool of one, etc.
Apes, subs. (Stock Exchange).--Atlantic
and North-Western
Railway first mortgage bonds.
Apostles, or The Twelve Apostles,
subs. phr. (Cambridge Univ.).--Formerly,
when the Poll, or
ordinary B.A. degree list was
arranged in order of merit, the
last twelve were nicknamed
The Twelve Apostles. They
were also called The Chosen
Twelve, and the last, St. Poll
or St. Paul--a punning allusion
to 1 Cor. xv., 9, 'For I am the
least of the Apostles, that am
not meet to be called an
Apostle.' The list is now
arranged alphabetically and in
classes. Hotten suggests that
Apostles is a corruption of
post alios, i.e., 'after the others.'
It may perhaps also be mentioned
that in one American
University at least, Columbia
College, D.C., the last twelve
on the B.A. list actually receive
the personal names of the
Apostles.
1795. Gentleman's Magazine, Jan., p. 19. [The last twelve names on the Cambridge list are here called The Twelve Apostles.]
Manœuvering the Apostles, a variant of the familiar expression, 'to rob Peter to pay Paul'; i.e., to borrow from one person to pay another.
Apostle's Grove, subs. (common).--The
London district known
as St. John's Wood. Also
called grove of the evangelist.
Both names are applied
sarcastically in allusion to the
large numbers of the demi-*
