up, so as to prevent a person from stretching out at full length, and filling the bag thus formed with brushes, soap-dishes, etc. So called, either from the apple-turnover, in which the 'paste' is turned over the apples, or from the French, à plis, folded.
1811. C. K. Sharpe, in Correspondence (1888), i., 466. After squeezing myself up, and making a sort of apple-pye bed with the beginning of my sheet.
1883. Saturday Review, Nov. 3, p. 566, col. 2. Some 'evil-disposed persons' have already visited his room, made his bed into an apple-pie, plentifully strewn with hair-brushes and razors.
The French have an analogous phrase, 'mettre un lit en portefeuille.'
Apple-Pie day, subs. phr. (Winchester
Coll.)--The day on
which Six-and-Six (q.v.) is
played. It is the Thursday
after the first Tuesday in December.
So called because
hot apple-pies were served on
gomers (q.v.) in College for
dinner.
Apple Pie Order, subs. phr.
(familiar).--Exact or perfect
order. Etymolygists have long
puzzled themselves concerning
this expression, and many derivations
have been put forward
in explanation. Some have
found in it an allusion to the
regular order in which the
component parts of some varieties
of that toothsome delicacy,
apple pie, were formerly
laid one on the top of, or side by
side with each other. Others,
on the contrary, scout such a
homely origin, and suggest that
apple pie order is cap à pied
order. The authorities who
incline to this view point out
that cap à pied in the sense of
'perfectly appointed' occurs in
one of the scenes of Hamlet.
Though orthographically the
transition from one to the
other, at first sight, would
appear to be somewhat lame
and halting, yet phonetically
the difference is much less
marked. It has further been
suggested that apple pie order
is a corruption of 'Alpha-beta'
i.e., alphabetical order, but this
would seem rather far-fetched,
as also is the reference of it to
the nursery rhyme of 'A was an
apple pie; B bit it; C cut it;
D divided it,' and so on, the
allusion being to the regular
order in which the letters of
the alphabet occur. Probably
the weight of evidence is on the
side of the derivation from
cap à pied, more especially as
that phrase was once very
familiar.
1813. Scott in Lochart, Life, IV. (1839), 131. The children's garden is in apple pie order.
1835. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, viii., 29. Put the craft a little into apple pie order.
1837. Barham, I. L. (Old Woman in Grey).
I am just in the order which some folks--though why, I am sure I can't tell you--would call apple pie.
Apples. How we apples swim!
phr. (common).--i.e., 'What a
good time we are having.' This
expression, a very old one, is
synonymous with pleasureable
experience coupled with brisk
action.
1697-1764. Hogarth (Works by J. Ireland and J. Nichols, London, 1873), III., p. 29. And even this, little as it is, gives him so much importance in his own eyes, that he assumes a consequen-*
