Chapter Gauntgrim to Geese of G by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Gauntgrim to Geese

Gauntgrim (g hard). The wolf.

"For my part (said he), I don't wonder at my cousin's refusing Bruin the bear and Gauntgrim the wolf. ... Bruin is always in the sulks, and Gauntgrim always in a passion." - E. B. Lytton: Pilgrims of the Rhine, chap. xii.

Gauntlet (g hard). To run the gantlet. To be hounded on all sides. Corruption of gantlope, the passage between two files of soldiers. (German, ganglaufen or gassenlaufen.) The reference is to a punishment common among sailors. If a companion had disgraced himself, the crew, provided with gauntlets or ropes' ends, were drawn up in two rows facing each other, and the delinquent had to run between them, while every man dealt him, in passing, as severe a chastisement as he could.
    The custom exists among the North American Indians. (See Fenimore Cooper and Mayne Reid.)
   To throw down the gauntlet. To challenge. The custom in the Middle Ages, when one knight challenged another, was for the challenger to throw his gauntlet on the ground, and if the challenge was accepted the person to whom it was thrown picked it up.

"It is not for Spain, reduced as she is to the lowest degree of social inanition, to throw the gauntlet to the right and left." - The Times.

Gautama (g hard). The chief deity of Burmah, whose favourite offering is a paper umbrella.
   The four sublime verities of Gautama are as follows:
   (1) Pain exists.
   (2) The cause of pain is "birth sin." The Buddhist supposes that man has passed through many previous existences, and all the heaped-up sins accumulated in these previous states constitute man's "birth sin."
   (3) Pain is ended only by Nirvana.
   (4) The way that leads to Nirvana is - right faith, right judgment, right language, right purpose, right practice, right obedience, right memory, and right meditation (eight in all).

Gautier and Garguille (French). All the world and his wife.
   Se mocquer de Gautier et de Garguille (to make fun of everyone). Gautier-Garguille was a clown of the seventeenth century, who gave himself unbounded licence, and provoked against himself a storm of angry feeling.

Gauvaine or Gawain = Gau-wain (2 syl., g hard). Sir Gauvaine the Courteous. One of Arthur's kinghts, and his nephew. He challenged the Green Knight, and struck off his head; but the headless knight picked up his poll again and walked off, telling Sir Gauvaine to meet him twelve months hence. Sir Gauvaine kept his appointment, and was hospitably entertained; but, taking possession of the girdle belonging to the lady of the house, was chastised by the Green Knight, confessed his fault, and was forgiven.

"The gentle Gawain's courteous lore,
Hector de Mares and Pellinore,
And Lancelot that evermore
Looked stol'nwise on the queen."
Sir W. Scott: Bridal of Triermain, ii. 13.

Gavelkind (g hard). A tenure in Wales, Kent, and Northumberland, whereby land descended from the father to all his sons in equal proportions. The youngest had the homestead, and the eldest the horse and arms.
    Coke (1 Institutes, 140 a) says the word is gif eal cyn (give all the kin); but Lambarde suggests the Anglo-Saxon gafol or gavel, rent; and says it means "land which yields rent"! gavel cyn, rent for the family derived from land. There is a similar Irish word, gabhailcine, a family tenure.

Gawain (g hard). (See Gauvaine .)

Gawrey (g hard). One of the race of flying women who appeared to Peter Wilkins in his solitary cave. (Robert Pultock: Peter Wilkins.)

Gay (g hard). Gay as the king's candle. A French phrase, alluding to an ancient custom observed on the 6th of January, called the "Eve or Vigil of the Kings," when a candle of divers colours was burnt. The expression is used to denote a woman who is more showily dressed than is consistent with good taste.

Gay Deceiver (A). A Lothario (q.v.); a libertine.

"I immediately quitted the precincts of the castle, and posted myself on the high road, where the gay deceiver was sure to be intercepted on his return." - Le Sage: Adventures of Gil Blas (Smollett's translation). (1749.)

Gay Girl A woman of light or extravagant habits. Lady Anne Berkeley, dissatisfied with the conduct