Chapter Adessenarians to Adrastus of A by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Admiral of the Red A punning term applied to a wine-bibber whose face and nose are very red.

Admittance Licence. Shakespeare says. "Sir John, you are a gentleman of excellent breeding, of great admittance" - i.e., to whom great freedom is allowed (Merry Wives, ii.2). The allusion is to an obsolete custom called admission, by which a prince avowed another prince to be under his protection. Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, was the "admittant" of the Emperor Napoleon III.

Admonitionists or Admonitioners Certain Puritans who in 1571 sent an admonition to the Parliament condemning everything in the Church of England which was not in accordance with the doctrines and practices of Geneva.

Adolpha Daughter of General Kleiner, governor of Prague and wife of Idenstein.

Her only fault was "excess of too sweet nature, which ever made another's grief her own." - Knowles: Maid of Mariendorpt (1838).

Adonai Son of the star-beam and god of light among the Rosicru cians. One of the names given by the Jews to Jehovah, for fear of breaking the command, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord [Jehovah] thy God in vain."

Adonais (4 syl.) The song about Adonis; Shelley's elegy on Keats is so called. See Bion's Lament for Adonis.

Adonies Feasts of Adonis, celebrated in Assyria, Alexandria, Egypt, Judea, Persia, Cyprus, and all Greece, for eight days. Lucian gives a long description of them. In these feasts wheat, flowers, herbs, fruits, and branches of trees were carried in procession, and thrown into the sea or some fountain.

Adonis Abeautiful boy. The allusion is to Adonis, who was beloved by Venus, and was killed by a boar while hunting.

"Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he loved; but love he laughed to scorn.
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And, like a bold-faced suitor, gins to woo him."
Shakespeare: Venus and Adonis.

Adonis of 50 Leigh Hunt was sent to prison for applying this term to George IV when Regent.

Adonis Flower (The) according to Blon, is the rose; Pliny (i. 23) says it is the anemone; others say it is the field, poppy, certainly the prince of weeds; but what we now generally mean by the Adonis flower is pheasant's eye, called in French goute-de-sang, because in fable it sprang from the blood of the gored hunter.

"(Blood brings forth roses, tears anemone.) - Bion: Elegy on Adonis. See also Ovid: Metamorphoses, Bk. x., Fable 15.)

Adonis Garden or A garden of Adonis (Greek). A worthless toy; a very perishable good. The allusion is to the fennel and lettuce jars of the ancient Greeks, called "Adonis gardens," because these herbs were planted in them for the annual festival of the young huntsman, and thrown away the next morning. (1 Henry VI., i. 6.)

Adonis River A river in Phoenicia, which always runs red at the season of the year when the feast of Adonis is held. The legend ascribes this redness to sympathy with the young hunter; others ascribe it to a sort of minimum, or red earth, which mixes with the water.

Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day,
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded."
Milton: Paradise Lost, Book 1, line 445, etc.

Adonists Those Jews who maintain that the proper vowels of the word Jehovah are unknown, and that the word is never to be pronounced Adonai. (Hebrew, adon, lord.)