Chapter Iberia to Idle Wheel of I by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Ides (1 syl.). In the Roman calendar the 15th of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th of all the other months. (Latin and Etruscan, iduare, to divide. The middle of the month. Always eight days after the Nones.)

"Remember March; the ides of March remember." Shakespeare: Julius Caesar, iv. 3.

Idiom A mode of expression peculiar to a language, as a Latin idiom, a French idiom. (Greek, idios, peculiar to oneself.)

Idiosyncrasy A crotchet or peculiar one-sided view of a subject, a monomania. Properly a peculiar effect produced by medicines or foods; as when coffee acts as an aperient; the electrical current as an emetic, as it does upon me. (Greek, idios sun krasis, something peculiar to a person's temperament.)

Idiot meant originally a private person, one not engaged in any public office. Hence Jeremy Taylor says, "Humility is a duty in great ones, as well as in idiots" (private persons). The Greeks have the expressions, "a priest or an idiot" (layman), "a poet or an idiot" (prose-writer). As idiots were not employed in public offices, the term became synonymous with incompetency to fulfil the duties thereof. (Greek, idiotes.) (See Baron.)

Idle Lake The lake on which Phædria or Wantonness cruised in her gondola. It led to Wandering Island. (Spenser: Faërie Queene, book ii.)

Idle Wheel The middle of three wheels, which simply conveys the motion of one outside wheel to the other outside wheel.

   Suppose A, B, C to be three wheels, B being the idle or gear wheel. B simply conveys the motion of A to C, or of C to A.