Chapter Society to Soldats of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Society to Soldats

Society The upper ten thousand, or “the upper ten.” When persons are in “society,” they are on the visiting lists of the fashionable social leaders. The “society” of a district are the great panjandrums thereof.

“All the society of the district were present at the prince's ball.”- Newspaper paragraph, December, 1885.

Sock [comedy]. The Greek comic actors used to wear a sandal and sock. The difference between the sock and the tragic buskin was this- the sock went only to the ankle, but the buskin extended to the knee. (See Buskin .)

“Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on.”
Milton: L'Allegro.

Sock a Corpse (To). To shroud it. (French, sac, a cerement or shroud.)

“1591. Item paid for a sheet to sock a poor man that died at Byneons, 1s. 6d.”- Parish Register.

Socrates The greatest of the ancient philosophers, whose chief aim was to amend the morals of his countrymen, the Athenians. Cicero said of him that “he brought down philosophy from the heavens to earth;” and he was certainly the first to teach that “the proper study of mankind is man.” Socrates resisted the unjust sentence of the senate, which condemned to death the Athenian generals for not burying the dead at the battle of Arginu'sæ.

“Socrates-
Who, firmly good in a corrupted state,
Against the rage of tyrants single stood
Invincible.”
Thomson: Winter.

   Socrates used to call himself “the midwife of men's thoughts.” Out of his intellectual school sprang those of Plato and the Dialectic system; Euclid and the Megaric; Aristippos and the Cyrenaic, Antisthenes and the Cynic.

Sodom Apples of Sodom or mad apples. Strabo, Tacitus, and Josephus describe them as beautiful externally and filled with ashes. These “apples” are in reality gall-nuts produced by the insect called Cynips insana.

Soffarides (3 syl.). A dynasty of four kings, which lasted thirty-four years and had dominion over Khorassan, Seïstan, Fars, etc. (873-907); founded by Yacoub ebn Laith, surnamed al Soffar (the brazier), because his father followed that trade in Seïstan.

Soft He's a soft - half a fool. The word originally meant effeminate, unmanly; hence soft in brains, silly, etc., “soft in courage.” (3 Henry VI., ii. 2.)

Soft Sawder Flattery, adulation. A play is intended between solder (pronounced sawder) and sawder, a compound of saw (a saying). Soft solder, a composition of tin and lead, is used for soldering zinc, lead, and tin; hard solder for brass, etc. (French, soudure, Latin, solidus.)

Soft Soap Flattery, complimentary words. (See Soapy Sam .)

Soft as Soap - as “silk,” as “velvet.” (See Similes .)

Soft Fire makes Sweet Malt (A). Too fierce a fire would burn malt and destroy its sweetness, and too much hurry or precipitation spoils work, “Soft and fair goes fair;” “Love me little, love me long;” “Slow and steady wins the race;” “He who is in haste fishes in an empty pond;” “The more haste the worse speed;” “He who walks too hastily will stumble in a plain way:” “Hastily and well never met;” “It is good to have a hatch before the door;” “Hasty climbers have sudden falls.”

Soft Words Butter no Parsnips or “Fair words,” etc. Saying “Be thou fed” will not feed a hungry man. “Good words will not fill a sack.” To “butter parsnips” means also “dorer la pilule” (“soft words will not gild the pill of distress”).

Softly To walk softly. To be out of spirits. In Greece, mourners for the dead used to cut off their hair, go about muffled, and walk softly to express want of spirit and strength. When Elijah denounced the judgments of heaven against Ahab, that wicked king “fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly” to