Chapter Snap-Dragons to Societe de Momus of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

the curch or coif; but if she lost the name of virgin before she obtained that of wife, she “lost her silken snood,” and was not privileged to assume the curch. (Anglo-Saxon, snod.)

Snooks An exclamation of incredulity; a Mrs. Harris. A person tells an incredible story, and the listener cries Snooks - gammon; or he replies, It was Snooks - the host of the Château d'Espagne. This word “snook” may be a corruption of Noakes or Nokes, the mythical party at one time employed by lawyers to help them in actions of ejectment. (See Styles .)

Snore You snore like an owl. It is very generally believed that owls snore, and it is quite certain that a noise like snoring proceeds from their nests; but this is most likely the “purring” of the young birds, nestling in comfort and warmth under the parent wing.

Snow King Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden. (1594, 1611-1632.)

“At Vienna he was called in derision the Snow King, who was kept together by the cold, but would melt and disappear as he approached a warmer soil.”- Dr. Crichton: Scandinavia, vol. ii. p. 61.

Snowdonia The district which contains the mountain range of Snowdon.
   The King of Snowdonia. Moel-y-Wyddfa (the conspicuous peak), the highest in South Britain. (3,571 feet above the sea-level.)

Snowdrop (The). Tickell's fable is that King Albion's son fell in love with Kenna, daughter of Oberon, but Oberon in anger drove the lover out of fairyland. Albion's son brought an army to avenge the indignity, and was slain. Kenna applied the herb moly to the wounds, hoping to restore life; but the moment the juice of the herb touched the dead body it was converted into a snowdrop. Called the Fair Maid of February.

Snuff Up to snuff. Wide awake, knowing, sharp; not easily taken in or imposed upon; alive to scent (Dutch, snuffen, to scent, snuf; Danish, snöfte).
   Took it in snuff - in anger, in huff.

“You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff.”
Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2.

“Who, ... when it next came there, took it in snuff.”- Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV., i. 3.

Snuff Out He was snuffed out - put down, eclipsed. The allusion is to a candle snuffed with snuffers.

Soane Museum formed by Sir John Soane, and preserved in its original locality, No. 13, Lincoln's Inn Fields, the private residence of the founder. Sir John Soane died in 1837.

Soap An English form of savon, the French for soap.
   How are you off for soap? (for money or any other necessity). The insurgent women of Paris, in February, 1793, went about carrying, “Du pain et du savon!” (bread and soap).

“A deputation of washwomen petitioned the Convention for soap, and their plaintive cry was heard round the Salle de Manége, `Du pain er du savon!' ”- Carlyle: French Revolution, pt. iii. bk. iii. 1.

Soap (Castile). A hard white soap made of olive oil, sometimes mottled with ferruginous matter.
   There are also Marseilles soap, Spanish soap, Venetian soap, and marine soap (usually made of cocoanut oil and used with sea- water).

Soaped-pig Fashion (In). Vague; a method of speaking or writing which always leaves a way of escape. The allusion is to the custom at fairs, etc., of soaping the tail of a pig before turning it out to be caught by the tail.

“He is vague as may be; writing in what is called the `soaped-pig' fashion.”- Carlyle: The Diamond Necklace, chap. iv.

Soapy Sam Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, and afterwards of Winchester. (1805-1873.) It is somewhat remarkable that the floral decorations above the stall of the bishop and of the principal of Cuddesdon, were S. O. A. P. (the initials of Sam Oxon and Alfred Pott. When Samuel Wilberforce went to inspect the building he was dismayed at seeing his sobriquet thus perpetuated.
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