Chapter Driver of Europe to Drunkenness of D by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Driver of Europe to Drunkenness

Driver of Europe (Le Cocher de l'Europe). So the Empress of Russia used to call the Duc de Choiseul, minister of Louis XV., because he had spies all over Europe, and thus ruled its political cabals.

Drivers, in the Irish uprising about 1843, were persons engaged by landlords to drive all the live stock of defaulting tenants and lodge them in a pound [like that at Carrickmacross]. They were resisted by the Molly Maguires.

Drives fat Oxen (Who). Brook, in his Gustavus Vasa, says: "Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free," which Dr. Johnson parodied thus: "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat." (Boswell's Life, year 1784.)

Driving for Rent in Ireland, was a summary way of recovering rent by driving cattle to a pound, and keeping them till the rent was paid, or selling them by auction.

"It was determined that I and the bailiffs should go out in a body and `drive for rent.' " - Trench: Realities of Irish Life, chap. v.

Driving Pigs He is driving pigs, or driving pigs to market - i.e. snoring like pigs, whose grunt resembles the snore of a sleeper.

Droit d'Aubaine In France the king was entitled, at the death of foreign residents (except Swiss and Scots), to all their movable estates; the law was only abolished in 1819. Aubain means "alien," and droit d'aubaine the "right over an alien's property."

"Had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have suspended the effects of the droits d'aubaine: my shirts and black pair of breeches, portmanteau and all, must have gone to the king of France." - Sterne: Sentimental Journey (Introduction).

Drôle "C'est un drôle, " or "C'est un drôle d'homme " (he is a rum customer). "Un joyeux drôle " means a boon companion. "Une drôle de chose " means a queer thing; something one can make neither head nor tail of.

Dromio The brothers Dromio. Two brothers exactly alike, who serve two brothers exactly alike, and the mistakes of masters and men form the fun of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, based on the Menæchmi of Plautus.

Drone (l syl.). The largest tube of a bagpipe; so called because it sounds only one continuous note. (German, drohne, verb, drohnen, to groan or drone.)
   A drone. An idle person who lives on the means of another, as drones on the honey collected by bees; a sluggard. (Anglo-Saxon dræn, a male bee.)

Drop To take a drop. A euphemism for taking what the drinker chooses to call by that term. It may be anything from a sip to a Dutchman's draught.
   A drop of the cratur. In Ireland means a drink of whisky, or "creature-comfort."
   To take a drop too much. To be intoxicated. If it is the "last feather which breaks the camel's back," it is the drop too much which produces intoxication.
   To take one's drops. To drink spirits in private.

Drop (To). To drop an acquaintance is quietly to cease visiting and inviting an acquaintance. The opposite of picking up or taking up an acquaintance.

Drop in (To). To make a casual call, not invited; to pay an informal visit. The allusion is to fruit and other things falling down suddenly, unexpectedly, or accidentally. It is the intransitive verb, not the transitive, which means to "let fall."

Drop off (To). "Friends drop off," fall away gradually. "To drop off to sleep," to fall asleep (especially in weariness or sickness).