Chapter Air-brained to Albatross of A by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Air-brained to Albatross

Air-brained Giddy, heedless. This word is now generally spelt "hare-brained;" but, by ancient authors, hair-brained. In C. Thomson's Autobiography it is spelt "Air-brained," which seems plausible.

Air-line signifies (in the United States) the most direct and shortest possible route between two given places, as the Eastern and Western Air-line Railway.

Air-ship (An) A balloon.

"Presently a north-easterly current of wind struck the air-ship, and it began to move with great velocity upon a horizontal line." - Max Adeler: The Captain's MS.

Air-throne Odin's throne in Gladsheim. His palace was in Asgard.

Airs To give oneself mighty airs: to assume, in manner, appearance, and tone, a superiority to which you have no claim. The same as Air, manner (q.v.).

The plural is essential in this case to take it out of the category of mere eccentricity, or to distinguish it from "air" in the sense of deportment, as "he had a fine, manly air," "in air was that of a gentleman." Air, in the singular, being generally complimentary, but "airs" in the plural always conveying censure. In Italian, we find the phrase, Si da dell árie.

Aïrapadam The white elephant, one of the eight which, according to Indian mythology, sustain the earth.

Aisle (pronounce ile) The north and south wings of a church. Latin, ala (axilla, ascella), through the French, aile, a wing. In German the nave of a church is schiff, and the aisle flügel (a wing). In some church documents the aisles are called alleys (walks), and hence the nave is still sometimes called the "middle aisle" or alley. The choir of Lincoln Cathedral used to be called the "Chanters' alley;" and Olden tells us that when he came to be churchwarden, in 1638, he made the Puritans "come up the middle alley on their knees to the raile."

Aitch-bone of beef. Corruption of "Naitch-bone," i.e. the haunch-bone (Latin, nates, a haunch or buttock).

Similarly, "an apron" is a corruption of a napperon; "an adder" is a corruption of a nadder (Old Eng., næddre). In other words, we have reversed the order; thus "a net" is an ewt , "a nag" is an ög (Danish). Latin, eq [uus ], a horse.

Ajax the Greater. King of Salamis, a man of giant stature, daring, and self-confident. Generally called Telamon Ajax, because he was the son of Telamon. When the armour of Hector was awarded to Ulysses instead of to himself, he turned mad from vexation and stabbed himself. - Homer's Iliad, and later poets.

Ajax the Less Son of Oïleus (3 syl.), King of Locris, in Greece. The night Troy was taken, he offered violence to Cassandra, the prophetic daughter of Priam; in consequence of which his ship was driven on a rock, and he perished at sea. - Homer's Iliad, and later poets.

"Ipsa (Juno), Jovis rapidum jaculata e nubibus ignem,
Disjecitque rates, evertitque æquora ventis;
Illum (Ajax) expirantem transfixo pectore flammas
Turbine corripuit, scopuloque infixit acuto."
Virgil: Æneid, i. 42, etc.

Akbar An Arabic word, meaning "Very Great." Akbar-Khan, the "very great Khan," is applied especially to the Khan of Hindûstan who reigned 1556--1605.

Akuan the giant whom Rustan slew. (Persian mythology).

Akuman The most malevolent of all the Persian gods.

Alabama U. S. America. The name of an Indian tribe of the Mississippi Valley, meaning "here we rest."