Chapter Curses to Cut Blocks with a Razor of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Curses to Cut Blocks with a Razor

Curses Curses, like chickens, come home to roost. Curses fall on the head of the curser, as chickens which stray during the day return to their roost at night.

Cursing by Bell, Book, and Candle is reading the anathema in the church, then closing the Bible, tolling the bell, and extinguishing all the candles, saying “Fiat, fiat! Do-to (close) the Book, quench the candles, ring the bell. Amen, amen.”

Cursitor (Latin, clericus de cursu). Formerly a clerk of the course; a chancery clerk, who made out original writs for the beat, course, or part of the county allotted him. A Newgate solicitor was called a cursitor in depreciation of his office.

Curst Curst cows have curt horns. Angry men cannot do all the mischief they wish. Curst means “angry” or “fierce,” and curt is “short,” as curtmantle, curt-hose. The Latin proverb is, “Dat Deus immiti cornua curta bovi. ”

“You are called plain Kate,
And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst.”
Shakespeare: Taming of the Shrew, ii. 1.

Curtail To cut short. (French, court tailler, to short cut, whence the old French courtault.)

Curtain (The). In fortification, the line of rampart which joins together the flanks of two “bastions” (q.v.).

Curtain To ring down the curtain. To bring a matter to an end. A theatrical term. When the act or play is over, the bell rings and the green curtain comes down.

“A few more matters of routine will be accomplished, and then the curtain will be rung down on the Session of 1891.” - Newspaper Paragraph, July 27th, 1891.

Curtain Lecture The nagging of a wife after her husband is in bed. The lectures of Mrs. Caudle in Punch are first-rate caricatures of these “small cattle.”

“Besides what endless brawls by wives are bred,
The curtain lecture makes a mournful bed.”
Dryden.

Curtal Friar A friar who served as an attendant at the gate of a monastery court. As a curtal dog was not privileged to hunt or course, so a curtal friar virtually meant a worldly-minded one.

“Some do call me the curtal Friar of Fountain Dale; others again call me in jest the Abbot of Fountain Abbey; others still again call me simply Friar Tuck.” - Howard Pyle: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, ii. p. 141.

Curtana The sword of Edward the Confessor, which, having no point, was the emblem of mercy. The royal sword of England was so called to the reign of Henry III.

“But when Curtana will not do the deed,
You lay the pointless clergy-weapon by,
And to the laws, your sword of justice, fly.”
Dryden: Hind and Panther, part ii. 419-21.

Curthose (2 syl.). Robert II., Duc de Normandie (1087-1134).

Curtis'e (2 syl.). The little hound in the tale of Reynard the Fox, by Heinrich von Alkman (1498). (High German, kurz; French, courte, short or small.)

Curtmantle The surname of Henry II. He introduced the Anjou mantle, which was shorter than the robe worn by his predecessors. (1133, 1154-1189.) (See Caracalla.)

Curule Chair Properly a chariot chair, an ornamental camp-stool made of ivory placed by the Romans in a chariot for the chief magistrate when he went to attend the council. As dictators, consuls, praetors, censors, and the chief ediles occupied such a chair, they were termed curule magistrates or curules. Horace calls the chair curule ebur (1 Epist., vi. 53).

Curzon Street (London). Named after the ground landlord, George August Curzon, third Viscount Howe.