Chapter Horse-vetch to Hound of H by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

subject was to follow his lord into the field, and the proclamation was banire in hostem (to order out against the foe), which soon came to signify "to order out for military service," and hostem facere came to mean "to perform military service." Hostis (military service) next came to mean the army that went against the foe, whence our word host.

"Like the leaves of the forest, when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset was seen;
Like the leaves of the forest, when autumn has blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown."
Byron: Destruction of Sennacherib, stanza 2.

   To reckon without your host. To reckon from your own standpoint only. Guests who calculate what their expenses at an hotel will come to always leave out certain items which the landlord adds in.

"Found in few minutes, to his cost,
He did but count without his host."
Butler: Hudibras, pt. i. canto iii. lines 22-3.

Hostage (2 syl.) is connected with the Latin obses, through the Mid. Latin hostagium, French Ôtage or ostage, Italian ostaggio.

Hostler is properly the keeper of an hostelry or inn.

Hot I'll make the place too hot to hold him. (See Talus.)
   I'll give it him hot and strong. I'll rate him most soundly and severely. Liquor very hot and strong takes one's breath away, and is apt to choke one.

Hot Cockles A Christmas game. One blindfolded knelt down, and being struck had to guess who gave the blow.

"Thus poets passing time away.
Like children at hot-cockles play." (1653.)

Hot Cross Buns Fosbroke says these buns were made of the dough kneaded for the host, and were marked with the cross accordingly. As the Good Friday buns are said to keep for twelve months without turning mouldy, some persons still hang up one or more in their house as a "charm against evil." (See Cross.)
    The round bun represents the full moon, and the cross represents the four quarters of the moon. They were made in honour of Diana by the ancient Roman priests, somewhere about the vernal equinox. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Egyptians, as well as the Greeks and Romans, worshipped the moon.

Hot-foot With speed; fast.

"And the Blackfoot who courted each foeman's approach.
Faith, `tis hotfoot he'd fly from the stout Father Roach." Lover.

   N.B. The Blackfoot was an Irish faction, similar to the Terry Alts in the early part of the nineteenth century.

Hot Water (In.) In a state of trouble, or of anxiety. The reference is to the ordeal by hot water (q.v.).

Hotch-pot Blackstone says hotch-pot is a pudding made of several things mixed together. Lands given in frank-marriage or descending in fee-simple are to be mixed, like the ingredients of a pudding, and then cut up in equal slices among all the daughters. (Book ii. 12.)
   As to personality: Hotch-pot may be explained thus: Suppose a father has advanced money to one child, at the decease of the father this child receives a sum in addition enough to make his share equal to the rest of the family. If not content, he must bring into hotch-pot the money that was advanced, and the whole is then divided amongst all the children according to the terms of the will.
   French, hochepot, from hocher, to shake or jumble together; or from the German hoch-pot, the huge pot or family caldron. Wharton says it is haché en poche.

Hotch-potch A confused mixture or jumble; a thick broth containing meat and vegetables.

"A sort of soup, or broth, or brew,
Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes."
Thackeray: Ballad of Bouillabaisse, stanza 2.

Hotspur A fiery person who has no control over his temper. Harry Percy was so called. Lord Derby was sometimes called the "Hotspur of debate." Lytton, in New Timon, calls him, "frank haughty, bold, the Rupert of debate." (See Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV.)