Chapter Lambro to Lancelot du Lac of L by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Lambro to Lancelot du Lac

Lambro was the father of Haidée. Major Lambro, the prototype, was head of the Russian piratical squadron in 1791. He contrived to escape when the rest were seized by the Algerines on the island of Zia. (Byron: Don Juan, iii. 26.)

Lame Duck (A.), in Stock Exchange parlance, means a member of the Stock Exchange who waddles off on settlement day without settling his account. All such defaulters are black-boarded and struck off the list. Sometimes it is used for one who cannot pay his debts, one who trades without money.

“Pitt ... gambled and lost:
But who must answer for the cost?
Not he, indeed! A duck confounded lame
Not unattended waddling ...”
Peter Pindar: Proh Impudentiam.

Lame King A Grecian oracle had told Sparta to “Beware of a lame king.” Agesilaos was lame, and during his reign Sparta lost her supremacy.

Lame Vicegerent (in Hudibras). Richard Cromwell.

Lamerock (Sir), of Wales. A knight of the Round Table, son of Sir Pellinore, and brother of Sir Percival. He had an amour with his own aunt, the wife of King Lote. Strange that of all the famous knights of the Round Table, Sir Caradoc and Sir Galahad were the only ones who were continent.

Lamia A female phantom, whose name was used by the Greeks and Romans as a bugbear to children. She was a Libyan queen beloved by Jupiter, but robbed of her offspring by the jealous Juno; and in consequence she vowed vengeance against all children, whom she delighted to entice and murder. (See Fairy .)

“Keats has a poem so called. His Lamia is a serpent who assumed the form of a beautiful woman, was beloved by a young man and got a soul. The tale was drawn from Philostratus.”- De Vita Apollonii book iv., introduced by Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy.

Lammas At latter Lammas- i.e. never. (See Never .)

Lammas Day (August 1st) means the loaf-mass day. The day of first-fruit offerings, when a loaf was given to the priests in lieu of the first-fruits. (Saxon, hlam-mæsse, for hlaf-mæsse dag.)
   August 1 Old Style, August 12 New Style.

Lammas-tide Lammas time, or the season when lammas occurs.

Lammor Beads Amber beads, once used as charms. (French, Vambre; Teutonic, lamertyn-stein.)

Lammermoor (See Edgar, Lucia .)

Lamming (A). A beating. (See Lamb-pie .)

Lamminin, Lamkin, Linkin or Bold Rakin. A scottish ogre, represented in the ballad as a bloodthirsty mason; the terror of the Scotch nursery.

Lamourette's Kiss On July 7th, 1792, the Abbé Lamourette induced the different factions of the Legislative Assembly of France to lay aside their differences; so the deputies of the Royalists, Constitutionalists, Girondists, Jacobins, and Orleanists rushed into each other's arms, and the king was sent for to see “how these Christians loved one another;” but the reconciliation was hollow and unsound. The term is now used for a reconciliation of policy without abatement of rancour.

Lamp To smell of the lamp. To bear the marks of great study, but not enough laboured to conceal the marks of labour. The phrase was first applied to the orations of Demosthenes, written by lamp-light with enormous care.