Chapter Chiabreresco to Children of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Chiabreresco to Children

Chiabreresco (Italian). Poetry formed on the Greek model; so called from Gabriel Chiabrera, surnamed the “Pindar of Italy” (1552-1637).

Chiar-oscuro [pronounce ke-ar-ros-ku'-ro . A style of painting now called “black and white.”

“Chiar-oscuro ... is the art of representing light in shadow and shadow in light, so that the parts represented in shadow shall still have the clearness and warmth of those in light; and those in light, the depth and softness of those in shadow.”- Chambers: Encyclopædia, iii. p. 171.

Chibiabos The musician; the harmony of nature personified. He teaches the birds to sing and the brooks to warble as they flow. “All the many sounds of nature borrow sweetness from his singing.”

“Very dear to Hiawatha
Was the gentle Chibiabos.
For his gentleness he loved him,
And the magic of his singing.”
Longfellow: Hiawatha, vi.

Chibouque (A). A smoking-pipe with a long tube, used in the East (Turkish).

Chic Fashionable; comme il faut; the mode. This is an archaic French word in vogue in the seventeenth century. It really is the Spanish chico, little, also a little boy, and chica, a little girl or darling. Similarly, wee in Scotch is a loving term of admiration and pride. (Chic is an abbreviation of the German geschickt, apt, clever.)

“Juse de mots de l'art, je met en marge hic;
J'espere avec le tems que j'entendrai le chic.”
Les Satyres de Du Lorens, xii. p. 97.

   Avoir le chic. To have the knack of doing the thing smartly.
   Chicard and chicandard = elegant, de grand style, are very common expressions with artists.

Chichivache (3 syl.). French for the “sorry cow,” a monster that lived only on good women- all skin and bone, because its food was so extremely scarce. The old English romancers invented another monster, which they called Bicorn, as fat as the other was lean; but, luckily, he had for food “good and enduring husbands,” of which there is no lack. (See Bicorn )

“O noble wyvës, full of heigh prudence,
Let noon humilitie your tongës nayle,
Ne lat no clerk have cause or diligence
To write of you a story of such mervayle
As of Griseldes, pacient and kynde,
Lest Chichi-vache you swolwe in hir entraile.”
Chaucer: L'Envoye de Chaucer, v. 9064.

   The French chiche-face means “thin-face.” Lydgate wrote a poem entitled Bycorne and Chichevache.

Chick-a-biddy (A). A child's name for a young chicken, and a mother's word of endearment to her young child. “Biddy” is merely the call of a child, bid-bid-bid-bid to a chicken.

“Do you, sweet Rob? Do you truly, chickabiddy?”-Dickens: Dombey and Son.

Chicken (plural chickens ). It is quite a mistake to suppose “chickens” to be a double plural. The Anglo-Saxon is cicen, plural cicen-u. We have a few plural forms in-en, as ox-en, brack-en, children, brethren, hosen, and eyen; but of these children and brethren are not the most ancient forms. “Chick” is a mere contraction of chicken.
   The old plural forms of “child” are child-r-e, dialectic child-er; children is a later form. The old plural forms of “brother” are brothru, brothre, brethre; later forms are brethren and brothres (now brothers).
   Children and chicken must always be pickin'. Are always hungry and ready to eat food.
   To count your chickens ere they are hatched (Hudibras). To anticipate profits before they come. One of Æsop's fables describes a market woman saying she would get so much for her eggs, with the money she would buy a goose; the goose in time would bring her so much, with which she would buy a cow, and so on; but in her excitement she kicked over her basket, and all her eggs were broken. The Latins said, “Don't sing your song of triumph before you have won the victory” (ante victoriam canere triumphum). “Don't crow till you are out of the wood” has a similar meaning. (See page 36, col. 2, Alnaschar's Dream)
   Curses like chickens come home to roost. (See under Curses)
   Mother Carey's chickens. (See Mother Carey)
   She's no chicken. Not young. The young child as well as the young fowl is called a chicken or chick.
Chicken of St. Nicholas (The). So the Piedmontese call the ladybird, or little red beetle with spots of black, called by the Russians “God's little cow,” and by the Germans, “God's little horse” sent as a messenger of love.