Chapter Many Men, Many Minds to Mare's Nest of M by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Many Men, Many Minds to Mare's Nest

Many Men, Many Minds
   Latin: “Quot homines tot sententiæ” (Terence).
   French: “Autant d'hommes, autant d'avis;” “Tant de gens, tant de guises;” “Autant de testes, autant d'opinions.”

Maori (The). The indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand. It is a New Zealand word, meaning natives. (Plur., Maoris.)

Mara A goblin that seized upon men asleep in their beds, and took from them all speech and motion.

Marabou Feathers Feathers of the bird so called, used by ladies for head-gear. There are two species of marabou stork, which have white feathers beneath their wings and tail especially prized. The word “marabou” means “devoted to God,” and the stork is a sacred bird. (See Marabuts .)

Marabout (in French). A bigbellied kettle; a very large sail; an ugly baboon of a man; also a sort of plume at one time worn by ladies. The “marabout hat” was a hat adorned with a marabou feather.

Marabuts An Arab tribe which, in 1075, founded a dynasty, put an end to by the Almohads. They form a priestly order greatly venerated by the common people. The Great Marabut ranks next to the king. (Arabic, marabath, devoted to God.)

Maranatha (Syriac, the Lord will come- i.e. to execute judgment). A form of anathematising among the Jews. The Romans called a curse or imprecation a devotion- i.e. given up to some one of the gods.

Maravedi (4 syl.). A very small Spanish coin, less than a farthing.

Marbles The Arundelian Marbles. Some thirty-seven statues and 128 busts with inscriptions, collected by W. Petty, in the reign of James I., in the island of Paros, and purchased of him by Lord Arundel, who gave them to the University of Oxford in 1627.
   The Elgin marbles. A collection of basso-relievos and fragments of statuary from the Parthenon of Athens (built by Phidias), collected by Thomas, Lord Elgin, during his mission to the Ottoman Porte in 1802. They were purchased from him by the British Government, in 1816, for £35,000, and are now in the British Museum. (The gin of “Elgin” is like the -gin of “begin.”)
   Money and marbles. Cash and furniture.

Marcassin (The Prince). From the Italian fairy-tales by Straparola, called Nights, translated into French in 1585.

Marcella A fair shepherdess whose story forms an episode in Don Quixote.

Marcellina The daughter of Rocco, jailor of the state prison of Seville. She falls in love with Fidelio, her father's servant, who turns out to be Leonora, the wife of the state prisoner Fernando Florestan. (Beethoven: Fidelio.)

Marcellus March He may be a rogue, but he's no fool on the march. (French, sur la marche likewise.)
   March borrows three days from April. (See Borrowed Days.)

March Dust A bushel of March dust is worth a king's ransom. According to the Anglo-Saxon laws, the fine of murder was a sliding scale proportioned to the rank of the person killed. The lowest was £10, and the highest £60; the former was the ransom of a churl, and the latter of a king.

March Hare Mad as a March hare. Hares in March are very wild; it is their rutting time. (See Hare .)

Marches (boundaries) is the Saxon mearc; but marsh, a meadow, is the Saxon mersc, anciently written marash, the French marais, and our morass. The other march is the origin of our marquis, the lord of the march. The boundaries between England and Wales, and between England and Scotland, were called “marches.”
   Riding the marches- i.e. beating the bounds of the parish (Scotch).