Chapter All Fools' Day to Alliteration of A by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

All Saints or All Hallows. In 610 the Pope of Rome ordered that the heathen Pantheon should be converted into a Christian church, and dedicated to the honour of all martyrs. The festival of All Saints was first held on May 1st, but in the year 834 it was changed to November 1st. "Hallows" is from the Anglo-Saxon hálig (holy).

All Serene derived from the Spanish word seréna. In Cuba the word is used as a countersign by sentinels, and is about equivalent to our "All right," or "All's well."

All Souls' Day The 2nd of November, so called because the Roman Catholics on that day seek by prayer and almsgiving to alleviate the sufferings of souls in purgatory. It was first instituted in the monastery of Clugny, in 993.

According to tradition, a pilgrim, returning from the Holy Land, was compelled by a storm to land on a rocky island, where he found a hermit, who told him that among the cliffs of the island was an opening into the infernal regions through which huge flames ascended, and where the groans of the tormented were distinctly audible. The pilgrim told Odilo, abbot of Clugny, of this; and the abbot appointed the day following, which was November 2nd, to be set apart for the benefit of souls in purgatory.

All the go All the fashion. Drapers will tell you that certain goods "go off well." They are in great demand, all the mode, quite in vogue.

"Her carte is hung in the West-end shops,
With her name in full on the white below;
And all day long there's a big crowd stops
To look at the lady who's all the go."
Sims: Ballads of Babylon ("Beauty and the Beast,").

All there Said of a sharp-witted person. Not all there, said of one of weak intellect. The one has all his wits about him, the other has not.

All for a Song! The exclamation of Burleigh, when Queen Elizabeth ordered him to give #100 to Spencer for a royal gratuity.

All to break (Judges ix. 53). "A certain woman cast a piece of millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to brake his skull" does not mean for the sake of breaking his skull, but that she wholly smashed his skull. A spurious form, owing its existence to a typographical mistake. The to really belongs to the verb; and in the last passage quoted it should be read "all to-brake." The to is a Teutonic particle, meaning asunder, in pieces. It is very common in Old English, where we have "To-bite," i.e. bite in pieces, tocleave, to-rend, to-tear. All is the adverb = entirely, wholly. So "all to bebattered" = wholly battered to pieces. All-to-frozen. Here to-frozen is intensitive. So in Latin dis-crucior = valde crucior. Plautus (in his Menoechmi , ii. line 24) uses the phrase "dis-caveas malo," i.e. be fully on your guard, etc., be very much beware of.

Gothic, dis; O. N., tor; Old High German, zar; Latin, dis; Greek, de.
"Mercutio's icy hand had all-to-frozen mine" i.e. wholly frozen up mine). - Romeo and Juliet (1362).
"Her wings were al-to-ruffled and sometimes impaired." - Milton: Comus.

All waters (I am for). I am a Jack of all trades, can turn my hand to anything, a good all-round man. Like a fish which can live in salt or fresh water.

"I am for all waters." Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, iv. 2.

All-work A maid of all work. A general servant who does all the work of a house; at once nurse-maid, house-maid, and cook.

Alla or Allah (that is, al-ilah). "The adorable." The Arabic name of the Supreme Being.

"The city won for Allah from the Giaour." Byron: Childe Harold, ii, 77.