Chapter Couvade to Crack of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Couvade to Crack

Couvade (2 syl.). A man who takes the place of his wife when she is in child-bed. (See Reader's Handbook, p. 217, col. 2.)

Cove (1 syl.). An individual, as a flash cove (a swell), a rum cove (a man whose position and character is not quite palpable), a gentry cove (a gentleman), a downy cove (a very knowing individual), etc. (Gipsy, cova, a thing; cova, that man; covi, that woman.)

Covenanters A term applied, during the civil wars, to the Scotch Presbyterians, who united by "solemn league and covenant" to resist the encroachments of Charles I. on religious liberty.

Covent Garden A corruption of Convent Garden; the garden and burial ground attached to the convent of Westminster, and turned into a fruit and flower market in the reign of Charles II. It now belongs to the Duke of Bedford.

Coventry To send one to Coventry. To take no notice of him; to let him live and move and have his being with you, but pay no more heed to him than to the idle winds which you regard not. According to Messrs. Chambers (Cyclopædia), the citizens of Coventry had at one time so great a dislike to soldiers that a woman seen speaking to one was instantly tabooed. No intercourse was ever allowed between the garrison and the town; hence, when a soldier was sent to Coventry, he was cut off from all social intercourse.
   Hutton, in his History of Birmingham, gives a different version. He says that Coventry was a stronghold of the parliamentary party in the civil wars, and that all troublesome and refractory royalists were sent there for safe custody
   The former explanation meets the general scope of the phrase the better. (See Boycott.)

Coventry Mysteries Miracle plays acted at Coventry till 1591. They were published in 1841 for the Shakespeare Society.
   Parliaments held at Coventry. Two parliaments have been held in this city, one in 1404, styled Parliamentum Indoctorum; rand the other in 1459, called Parliamentum Diabolicum.

Cover To break cover. To start from the covert or temporary lair. The usual earth-holes of a fox being covered up the night before a hunt, the creature makes some gorse-bush or other cover its temporary resting-place, and as soon as it quits it the hunt begins.

Covers were laid for ... Dinner was provided for. ... A cover (couvert) in French means knife, fork, spoon, and napkin. Hence, mettre le couvert, to lay the cloth; and lever (or ôter) le couvert, to clear it away.

Covered Way in fortification. (See Glacis .)

Covering the Face No malefactor was allowed, in ancient Persia, to look upon a king. So, in Esther vii. 5, when Haman fell into disgrace, being seen on the queen's divan, "they instantly cover Haman's face," that he might not look on the face of Ahasuerus.
    In India a low caste man covers his mouth when speaking to one of high caste.

Coverley Sir Roger de Coverley. A member of an hypothetical club in the Spectator, "who lived in Soho Square when he was in town." Sir Roger is the type of an English squire in the reign of Queen Anne. He figures in thirty papers of the Spectator.

"Who can be insensible to his unpretending virtues and amiable weaknesses; his modesty, generosity, hospitality, and eccentric whims; the respect for his neighbours, and the affection of his domestics?" - Hazlitt.

Covetous Man A Tantalus (q.v.).

"In the full flood stands Tantalus, his skin
Washed o'er in vain, for ever dry within.
He catches at the stream with greedy lips -
From his parched mouth the wanton torrent
slips ...
Change but the name, this fable is thy story:
Thou in a flood of useless wealth dost glory,
Which thou canst only touch, but never taste."
Cowley: Horace,