Chapter Odour to Ogygian Deluge of O by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Odour to Ogygian Deluge

Odour In good odour; in bad odour. In favour, out of favour; in good repute, in bad repute. The phrases refer to the “odour of sanctity” (q.v.).

Odour of Sanctity (In the). The Catholics tell us that good persons die in the “odour of sanctity;” and there is a certain truth in the phrase, for, when one honoured by the Church dies, it is not unusual to perfume the room with incense, and sometimes to embalm the body. Homer tells us (Iliad, xxiii.) that Hector's body was washed with rose-water. In Egypt the dead are washed with rose-water and perfumed with incense (Maillet: Letters, x. p. 88). Herodotos says the same thing (History, ii. 86-90). When the wicked and those hated die, no such care is taken of them.

“In both the Greek and Western Church incense is used, and the aroma of these consecrated oils follows the believer from birth to death.”- Nineteenth Century: April, 1894, p. 584.

    The Catholic notion that priests bear about with them an odour of sanctity may be explained in a similar manner: they are so constantly present when the censers diffuse sweet odour, that their clothes and skin smell of the incense.
    Shakespeare has a strong passage on the disodour of impiety. Antiochus and his daughter, whose wickedness abounded, were killed by lightning, and the poet says:-

“A fire from heaven came and shrivelled up
Their bodies, e'en to loathing; for they so stunk
That all those eyes adored them ere their fall
Scorned now their hand should give them burial.”
Pericles, Prince of Tyre. ii. 4.

Odrysium Carmen The poetry of Orpheus, a native of Thrace, called Odrysia tellus, because the Odrysës were its chief inhabitants.

O'dur Husband of Freyja, whom he deserted. (Scandinavian mythology.)

Odyle (2 syl.). That which emanates from a medium to produce the several phenomena connected with mesmerism, spirit-rapping, table-turning, and so on. The productions of these “manifestations” is sometimes called odylism. Baron Reichenbach called it Od force, a force which becomes manifest wherever chemical action is going on.

Odyssey The poem of Homer which records the adventures of Odysseus (Ulysses) in his home-voyage from Troy. The word is an adjective formed out of the hero's name, and means the things or adventures of Ulysses.

Œdipus I am no Œdipus. I cannot guess what you mean. Œdipus guessed the riddle of the Sphinx, and saved Thebes from her ravages. (See Sphinx. )

Œil A l'œil. On credit, for nothing. Corruption of the Italian a uffo (gratis). In the French translation of Don Quixote is this passage:-

“Ma femme, disait Sancho Panca, ne m'a jamais dit oui que quand il fallait dire non. Or elles sont toutes de meme ... Elles sont toutes bonnes à pendre ... passe cela, elles ne valent pas ceque pai dans l'œil.”

Œil de Bœuf (L'). A large reception-room (salle) in the palace of Versailles, lighted by round windows so called. The ceiling, decorated by Van der Meulen, contained likenesses of the children of Louis XIV. (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries).
   Les Fastes de l'Œil de Bœuf. The annals of the courtiers of the Grand Monarque; anecdotes of courtiers generally. The œil de bœuf is the round window seen in entresols, etc. The ante-room where courtiers waited at the royal chamber of Versailles had these ox-eye windows, and hence they were called by this name.

Off (Saxon, of; Latin, ab, from, away). The house is a mile off- i.e. is “away” or “from” us a mile. The word preceding off defines its scope. To be “well off” is to be away or on the way towards well-being; to be badly off is to be away or on the way to the bad. In many cases “off” is part of a compound verb, as to cut-off (away), to peel-off, to march-off, to tear-off, to take-off, to get-off, etc. The off-side of horses