Chapter Fighting the Tiger to Finger of F by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Fighting the Tiger to Finger

Fighting the Tiger Gaming is so called in the United States of America.

"After seeing `fighting the tiger,' as gaming is styled in the United States, I have arrived at the conclusion that gaming is more fairly carried on in the Monte Carlo casino than in any American gaming-house." - The Nineteenth Century, Feb., 1890, p. 249.

Fighting with Gloves on Sparring without showing animosity; fighting with weapons or words with coloured friendliness. Fighting, like boxers, with boxing gloves. Tories and Whigs in the two Houses of Parliament fight with gloves on, so long as they preserve all the outward amenities of debate, and conceal their hostility to each other by seeming friendliness.

Figure To cut a figure. This phrase seems applicable more especially to dress and outward bearing. To make a figure is rather to make a name or reputation, but the distinction is not sharply observed.
   To make a figure. To be a notability. Faire quelque figure dans le monde. "He makes no figure at court;" Il ne fait aucune figure à la cour.

Figure What's the figure? The price; what am I to pay? what "figure" or sum does my debt amount to?

Figure-head A figure on the head or projecting cutwater of a ship.

Figure of Fun (A). A droll appearance, whether from untidiness, quaintness, or other peculiarity. `A precious figure of fun,' is a rather stronger expression. These are chiefly applied to young children.

Figures A corruption of fingers, that is, "digits" (Latin, digiti, fingers). So called from the primitive method of marking the monades by the fingers. Thus the first four were simply i, ii, iii, iiii; five was the outline of the hand simplified into a v; the next four figures were the two combined, thus, vi, vii, viii, viiii; and ten was a double v, thus, x. At a later period iiii and viiii were expressed by one less than five (i-v) and one less than ten (i-x). Nineteen was ten-plus-nine (x + ix), etc. - a most clumsy and unphilosophical device.

Filch To steal or purloin. A filch is a staff with a hook at the end, for plucking clothes from hedges and abstracting articles from shop windows. Probably it is a corruption of pilfer. (Welsh, yspeilio and yspeiliwr; Spanish, pellizcar: French, piller and peler. Filch and pilfer are variants of the same word.

"With cunning hast thou filched my daughter's heart."
Shakespeare: Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 2.

File To cheat. The allusion is to filing money for the sake of the dust which can be used or sold. A file is a cheat. Hence "a jolly file," etc.

"Sorful becom that fals file."
Cursor Mundi MS.

   In single file. Single row; one behind another. (French, file, a row.)
   Rank and file. Common soldiers. Thus we say, "Ten officers and three hundred rank and file fell in the action." Rank refers to men standing abreast, file to men standing behind each other.

"It was only on the faith of some grand expedition that the credulous rank and file of the Brotherhood subscribed their dollars." - The Times ...

Filia Dolorosa The Duchesse d'Angoulême, daughter of Louis XVI., also called the modern Antigone. (1778-1851.)

Filibuster A piratical adventurer. The most notorious was William Walker, who was shot in 1855. (French, flibustier, a corruption of our "freebooter;" German, freibeuter; Spanish, filibustero; Dutch, vrijbueter.) (See Buccaneer.)

Filioque Controversy (The) long disturbed the Eastern and Western Churches. The point was this: Did the Holy Ghost proceed from the Father and the Son (Filio-que), or from the Father only? The Western Church maintained the former, and the Eastern Church the latter dogma. The filio-que was added in the Council of Toledo 589. Amongst others, Pope Leo III. was averse to the change. (Nicene Creed.)
   The gist of the argument is this: If the Son is one with the Father, whatever proceeds from the Father must proceed from the Son also. This is technically called "The Procession of the Holy Ghost."

Fill-dyke The month of February, when the rain and melted snow fills the ditches to overflowing.