Chapter Giants' War with Jove to Giles Overreach of G by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Giants' War with Jove to Giles Overreach

Giants' War with Jove (The). The War of the Giants and the War of the Titans should be kept distinct. The latter was after Jove or Zeus was god of heaven and earth, the former was before that time. Kronos, a Titan, had been exalted by his brothers to the supremacy, but Zeus made war on Kronos with the view of dethroning him. After ten years' contest he succeeded, and hurled the Titans into hell. The other war was a revolt by the giants against Zeus, which was readily put down by the help of the other gods and the aid of Hercules.

Giaour (jow'-er). An unbeliever, one who disbelieves the Mahometan faith. A corruption of the Arabic Kiafir. It has now become so common that it scarcely implies insult, but has about the force of the word "Gentile," meaning "not a Jew." Byron has a poetical tale so called, but he has not given the giaour a name.

"The city won for Allah from the Giaour,
The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest."
Byron: Childe Harold, canto ii. stanza 77.

Gib (g soft). The cut of his gib. (See Jib.)
   To hang one's gib. To be angry, to pout. The lower lip of a horse is called its gib, and so is the beak of a male salmon.

Gib Cat A tom-cat. The male cat used to be called Gilbert. Nares says that Tibert or Tybalt is the French form of Gilbert, and hence Chaucer in his Romance of the Rose, renders "Thibert le Cas" by "Gibbe, our Cat" (v. 6204). Generally used for a castrated cat. (See Tybalt.)

"I am as melancholy as a gib cat or a lugged bear." - Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV., i. 2.

Gibberish (g hard). Geber, the Arabian, was by far the greatest alchemist of the eleventh century, and wrote several treatises on "the art of making gold" in the usual mystical jargon, because the ecclesiastics would have put to death any one who had openly written on the subject. Friar Bacon, in 1282, furnishes a specimen of this gibberish. He is giving the prescription for making gunpowder, and says -

"Sed tamen salis-petræ
LURU MONE CAP URBE
Et sulphuris."

   The second line is merely an anagram of Carbonum pulvere (pulverised charcoal).
    "Gibberish," compare jabber, and gabble.

Gibbet (g soft). A foot-pad, who "piqued himself on being the best-behaved man on the road." (George Farquhar: Beaux' Stratagem.)
   To gibbet the bread (Lincolnshire). When bread turns out ropy and is supposed to be bewitched, the good dame runs a stick through it and hangs it in the cupboard. It is gibbeted in terrorem to other batches.

Gibelins or Ghibellines (g hard). (See Guelphs.)

Gibeonite (4 syl., g hard). A slave's slave, a workman's labourer, a farmer's understrapper, or Jack-of- all-work. The Gibeonites were made "hewers of wood and drawers of water" to the Israelites. (Josh. ix. 27.)

"And Giles must trudge, whoever gives command,
A Gibeonite, that serves them all by turn."
Bloomfield: Farmer's Boy.

Giblets (The Duke of). A very fat man. In Yorkshire a fat man is still nicknamed "giblets."

Gibraltar (g soft). A contraction of Gibel al Tari (Gibal Tar), "mountain of Tari." This Tari ben Zeyad was an Arabian general who, under the orders of Mousa, landed at Calpë in 710, and utterly defeated Roderick, the Gothic King of Spain. Cape Tarifa is named from the same general.
   Gibraltar of Greece. A precipitous rock 700 feet above the sea, in Nauplia (Greece).
   Gibraltar of the New World. Cape Diamond, in the province of Quebec.

Gif Gaff Give and take, good turn for good turn.

"I have pledged my word for your safety, and you must give me yours to be private in the matter - giff gaff, you know." - Sir W. Scott: Redgauntlet, chap. xii.

Gift-horse Don't look a gift-horse in the mouth. When a present is made, do not inquire too minutely into its intrinsic value.
   Latin: "Noli equi dentes inspicere donati." "Si quis det mannos ne quære in dentibus annos" (Monkish).
   Italian: "A cavallao daio non guardar