Chapter Pelides to Pennals of P by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Pelides to Pennals

Pelides Son of Peleus (2 syl.)- that is, Achilles, the hero of Homer's Iliad, and chief of the Greek warriors that besieged Troy.

“When, like Pelides, bold beyond control,
Homer raised high to heaven the loud impetuous song.”
Beattie, Minstrel.

Pelion Heaping Ossa upon Pelion. Adding difficulty to difficulty, embarassment to embarrassment, etc. When the giants tried to scale heaven, they placed Mount Ossa upon Mount Pelion for a scaling ladder.

“Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam”
Virgil: Georgics, i. 281.

    A noteworthy hexameter verse. The i of “conati” does not elide, nor yet the o of “Pelio.”

Pell-mell Headlong; in reckless confusion. From the players of pall-mall, who rush heedlessly to strike the ball. The “pall” is the ball (Italian, palla), and the “mall” is the mallet or bat (Italian, maglia; Latin, malleus). Sometimes the game is called “pall mall;” and sometimes the ground set apart for the game, as Pall Mall, London.
    It is not quite certain that pell-mell is the same compound word as pall-mall.

Pellean Conqueror Alexander the Great, born at Pella, in Macedonia.

“Remember that Pellean conqueror.”
Milton: Paradise Regained, ii.

Pelleas (Sir). One of the knights of the Round Table. In the Faërie Queene he goes after the “blatant beast” when it breaks the chain with which it had been bound by Sir Calidore.

Pells Clerk of the Pells. An officer of the Exchequer, whose duty it was to make entries on the pells or parchment rolls. Abolished in 1834.

Pelops Son of Tantalos, cut to pieces and served as food to the gods. The More'a was called Peloponnesos or the “island of Pelops,” from this mythical king.
   The ivory shoulder of the sons of Pelops. The distinguishing or distinctive mark of anyone. The tale is that Demeter ate the shoulder of Pelops when it was served up by Tantalos, and when the gods put the body back into the cauldron to restore it to life, he came forth lacking a shoulder. Demeter supplied an ivory shoulder, and all his descendants carried this mark in their bodies. (See Pythagoras.)

Pelorus Cape di Faro, a promontory of Sicily. (Virgil: Æneid, iii. 6, 7.)

“As when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus.”
Milton: Paradise Lost, bk. i. 232.

Pelos [mud ]. Father of Physignathos, king of the frogs. (Battle of the Frogs and Mice.)

Pelt in printing. Untanned sheepskins used for printing-balls. (French, pelte, Latin, pellis, a skin.)

Pen Name sometimes written nom-de-plume. A fictitious name assumed by an author who does not wish to reveal his real name. (See Nom De Guerre .)

Pen and Feather are varieties of the same word, the root being the Sanskrit pat, to fly. (We have the Sanskrit pattra, a wing or instrument for flying; Latin, petna or, penna, pen; Greek, pteron; Teutonic, phathra; Anglo-Saxon, fether; our “feather.”)
    Analogous examples are TEAR and LARME, NAG and EQUUS, WIG and PERUKE, HEART and COEUR, etc.

Penang Lawyers Clubs. Penang sticks come from Penang, or the Prince of Wales Island, in the Malaccas.

Penates (3 syl.). The household gods of the Romans.

Pencil of Rays All the rays that issue from one point, or that can be focussed at one point (Latin, penicillus, little tail, whence penicillum, a painter's brush made of the hair of a cow's tail); so called because they are like the hairs of a paint-brush, except at the point where they aggregate.