Chapter Anthroposophus to Apis of A by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Antisthenes Founder of the Cynic School in Athens. He wore a ragged cloak, and carried a wallet and staff like a beggar. Socrates wittily said he could "see rank pride peering, through the holes of Antisthenes rags."

Antoninus The Wall of Antonine. A turf entrenchment raised by the Romans from Dunglass Castle, on the Clyde, to Caer Ridden Kirk, near the Firth of Forth under the direction of Lollius Urbicus, legate of Antoninus Pius, A.D 140.

Antony (See Anthony .)

Antrustions The chief followers of the Frankish kings, who were specially trusty to them. (Old German, tröst, trust, fidelity.)

"None but the king could have antrustions." - Stubbs: Constitutional History.

Ants "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, ... which provideth her meat in the summer " (Proverbs vi. 6--8; and xxx. 25). The notion that ants in general gather food in harvest for a winter's store is quite an error; in the first place, they do not live on grain, but chiefly on animal food; and in the next place they are torpid in winter, and do not require food. Colonel Sykes, however, says there is in Poonah a grain-feeding species, which stores up millet- seed; and according to Lubbock and Moggridge, ants in the south of Europe and in Texas make stores.

What are called "ant eggs" are not eggs, but the pupæ of ants.

Anubis In Egyptian mythology, similar to the Hermës of Greece, whose office it was to take the souls of the dead before the judge of the infernal regions. Anubis is represented with a human body and jackal's head.

Anvil It is on the anvil, under deliberation; the project is in hand. Of course, the reference is to a smithy.

"She had another arrangement on the anvil." - Le Fanu: The House in the Churchyard.

Any-how i.e. in an irregular manner. "He did it any-how," in a careless, slovenly manner. "He went on any-how," in a wild, reckless manner. Any-how, you must manage it for me; by hook or crook; at all events. (Old English, oenig-hú.)

Aonian Poetical, pertaining to the Muses. The Muses, according to Grecian mythology, dwelt in Aonia, that part of Boetia which contains Mount Helicon and the Muses' Fountain. Thomson calls the fraternity of poets

"The Aonian hive
Who praised are, and starve right merrily."
Castle of Indolence , ii. 2.

A outrance (French.) To the farthest point. The correct form of the phrase.

Ape The buf foon ape, in Dryden's poem called The Hind and the Panther, means the Free-thinkers.

"Next her [the bear ] the buffoonape, as atheists use,
Mimicked all sects, and had his own to choose."
Part i. 39, 40.

He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed (Hamlet iv. 2). Most of the Old World monkeys have cheek pouches, used as receptacles for food.

To lead apes or To lead apes in hell. It is said of old maids. Hence, to die an old maid.

"I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell." - Shakespeare: Much