Chapter Gargittios to Gaunt of G by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Garter (g hard). Knights of the Garter. The popular legend is that Joan, Countess of Salisbury, accidentally slipped her garter at a court ball. It was picked up by her royal partner, Edward III., who gallantly diverted the attention of the guests from the lady by binding the blue band round his own knee, saying as he did so, "Honi soit qui mal y pense" (1348).
   Wearing the garters of a pretty maiden either on the hat or knee was a common custom with our forefathers. Brides usually wore on their legs a host of gay ribbons, to be distributed after the marriage ceremony amongst the bridegroom's friends; and the piper at the wedding dance never failed to tie a piece of the bride's garter round his pipe. If there is any truth in the legend given above, the impression on the guests would be wholly different to what such an accident would produce in our days; but perhaps the "Order of the Garter," after all, may be about tantamount to "The Order of the Ladies' Champions," or "The Order of the Ladies' Favourites."

Garvies (2 syl., g soft). Sprats. So called from Inch Garvie, an isle in the Frith of Forth, near which they are caught.

Gasconade (3 syl., g hard). Talk like that of a Gascon - absurd boasting, vainglorious braggadocio. It is said that a Gascon being asked what he thought of the Louvre in Paris, replied, "Pretty well; it reminds me of the back part of my father's stables." The vainglory of this answer is more palpable when it is borne in mind that the Gascons were proverbially poor. The Dictionary of the French Academy gives us the following specimen: "A Gascon, in proof of his ancient nobility, asserted that they used in his father's house no other fuel than the batons of the family marshals."

Gaston (g hard). Lord of Claros, one of Charlemagne's paladins.

Gastrolators People whose god is their belly. (Rabelais: Pantagruel, iv. 58.)

Gat-tooth (g hard). Goat-tooth. (Anglo-Saxon, gæt.) Goat-toothed is having a lickerish tooth. Chaucer makes the wife of Bath say, "Gat-toothed I was, and that became me wele."

Gate Money Money paid at the gate for admission to the grounds where some contest is to be seen.

Gate-posts The post on which the gate hangs and swings is called the "hanging-post"; that against which it shuts is called the "banging post."

Gate of Italy That part of the valley of the Adige which is in the vicinity of Trent and Roveredo. A narrow gorge between two mountain ridges.

Gate of Tears [Babelmandeb]. The passage into the Red Sea. So called by the Arabs from the number of shipwrecks that took place there.

"Like some ill-destined bark that steers
In silence through the Gate of Tears."
T. Moore: Fire Worshippers.

Gath (g hard), in Dryden's satire of Absalom and Achitophel, means Brussels, where Charles II. long resided while he was in exile.

"Had thus old David [Charles II.] ...
Not dared, when fortune called him, to be king,
At Gath an exile he might still remain."

   Tell it not in Gath. Don't let your enemies hear it. Gath was famous as being the birthplace of the giant Goliath.

"Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph." - 2 Sam.i.20.

Gathered = dead. The Bible phrase, "He was gathered to his fathers."

"He was (for he is gathered) a little man with a coppery complexion." - Dr. Geist, p. 25.

Gathers (g hard). Out of gathers. In distress; in a very impoverished condition. The allusion is to a woman's gown, which certainly looks very seedy when "out of gathers" - i.e. when the cotton that kept the "pleats" together has given way. (Anglo-Saxon, gader-ian, to gather, or pleat.)