Chapter Thorns to Three Sheets in the Wind of T by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Thorns to Three Sheets in the Wind

Thorns Calvin (Admonitio de Reliquiis) gives a long list of places claiming to possess one or more of the thorns which composed the Saviour's crown. To his list may be added Glastonbury Abbey, where was also the spear of Longius or Longinus, and some of the Virgin's milk.
   The thorns of Dauphiné will never prick unless they prick the first day. This proverb is applied to natural talent. If talent does not show itself early, it will never do so- the truth of which application is very doubtful indeed.

“Si l'espine non picque quand nai,
A pene que picque jamai.”
Proverb in Dauphine.

Thorps-men Villagers. This very pretty Anglo-Saxon word is worth restoring. (Thorpe, Anglo-Saxon, a village.)

Thoth The Hermes of Egyptian mythology. He is represented with the head of an ibis on a human body. He is the inventor of the arts and sciences, music and astronomy, speech and letters. The name means “Logos” or “the Word.”

Though Lost to Sight, to Memory Dear A writer in Harper's Magazine tells us that the author of this line was Ruthven Jenkyns, and that the poem, which consists of two stanzas each of eight lines, begins each stanza with “Sweetheart, good-bye,” and ends with the line, “Though lost to sight, to memory dear.” The poem was published in the Greenwich Magazine for Marines in 1701 or 1702.

Thousand Everyone knows that a dozen may be either twelve or thirteen, a score either twenty or twenty-one, a hundred either one hundred or one hundred and twenty, and a thousand either one thousand or one thousand two hundred. The higher numbers are the old Teutonic computations. Hickes tells us that the Norwegians and Icelandic people have two sorts of decad, the lesser and the greater called “Tolfræd.” The lesser thousand = 10 x 100, but the greater thousand = 12 x 100. The word tolf, equal to tolv, is our twelve. (Institutiones Grammaticæ, p. 43.)

“Five score of men, money, or pins,
Six score of all other things.” Old Saw.

Thousand Years as One Day (A). (1 Peter iii. 8.) Precisely the same is said of Brahma. “A day of Brahma is as a thousand revolutions of the Yoogs, and his might extendeth also to a thousand more.” (Kreeshna: Bhagavat Geeta.)

Thrall A slave; bondage; wittily derived from drill, in allusion to the custom of drilling the ear of a slave in token of servitude, a custom common to the Jews. (Deut. xv. 17.) Our Saxon forefathers used to pierce at the church-door the ears of their bond-slaves. (Anglo-Saxon, thrael, slave or bondman.)

Thread The thread of destiny- i.e. that on which destiny depends. The Greeks and Romans imagined that a grave maiden called Clotho spun from her distaff the destiny of man, and as she spun one of her sisters worked out the events which were in store, and Atropos cut the thread at the point when death was to occur.
   A St. Thomas's thread. The tale is that St. Thomas planted Christianity in China, and then returned to Malabar. Here he saw a huge beam of timber floating on the sea near the coast, and the king endeavouring, by the force of men and elephants, to haul it ashore, but it would not stir. St. Thomas desired leave to build a church with it, and, his request being granted, he dragged it easily ashore with a piece of packthread. (Faria y Sousa.)
   Chief of the Triple Thread. Chief Brahmin. Osorius tells us that the Brahmins wore a symbolical Tessera of three threads, reaching from the right shoulder to the left. Faria says that the religion of the Brahmins proceeded from fishermen, who left the charge of the temples to their successors on the condition of their wearing some threads of their nets in remembrance of their vocation; but Osorius maintains that the triple thread symbolises the Trinity.

“Terna fila ab humero dextero in latus sinistrum gerunt, ut designent trinam in natura divina rationem.”

Threadneedle Street A corruption of Thryddanen or Thryddenal Street, meaning third street from “Chepesyde” to the great thoroughfare from London Bridge to “Bushop Gate” (consisting of New Fyshe Streate, Gracious Streate, and Bushop Gate Streate). (Anglo-Saxon, thrydda or thrydde, third.)
   Another etymology is Thrig-needle (three-needle street), from the three needles which the Needlemaker's Company bore in their arms. It begins from the Mansion House, and therefore the Bank stands in it.
   The Old Lady