Chapter Windmill Street to Wishart of W by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Windmill Street to Wishart

Windmill Street When Charnel chapel, St. Paul's, was taken down by the Protector Somerset, in 1549, more than 1,000 cart-loads of bones were removed to Finsbury Fields, where they formed a large mound, on which three windmills were erected. It was from these mills that the street obtained its name. (Leigh Hunt.)

Window (Norwegian, vindue.) A French window opens like folding doors; a sash window is in two parts, called sashes, one or both of which are made to slide up and down about half way.

Wine A magnum of wine is two quarts; a tappit-hen of wine or rum is a double magnum; a jeroboam of wine or rum is a double “tappit-hen”; and a rehoboam (q.v.) is a double jeroboam.

Wine The French say of wine that makes you stupid, it is vin d'âne; if it makes you maudlin, it is vin de cerf (from the notion that deer weep); if quarrel-some, it is vin de lion; if talkative, it is vin de pie; if sick, it is vin de porc; if crafty, it is vin de renard; if rude, it is vin de singe. (See below.)
   Win of ape (Chaucer). “I trow that ye have drunken win of ape”- i.e. wine to make you drunk; in French, vin de singe. There is a Talmud parable which says that Satan came one day to drink with Noah, and slew a lamb, a lion, a pig, and an ape, to teach Noah that man before wine is in him is a lamb, when he drinks moderately he is a lion, when like a sot he is a swine, but after that any further excess makes him an ape that senselessly chatters and jabbers.

Wine-month (Anglo-Saxon, Winmonath.) The month of October, the time of vintage.

Wine Mingled with Myrrh (Mark xv. 23). Called by the Romans Murrhina (vinum myrrha conditum), given to malefactors to intoxicate them, that their sufferings from crucifixion might be somewhat deadened.

“ `Falernum' (that divina potio) was flavoured with myrrh.”

Winfrith The same as St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, an Anglo-Saxon, killed by a band of heathens in 755.

Wing, Wings Wing of a house, wing of an army, wing of a battalion or squadron, etc., are the side- pieces which start from the main body, as the wings of birds.
   Don't try to fly without wings. Attempt nothing you are not fit for. A French proverb.
   On the wing. Au vol, about to leave.
   To clip one's wings. To take down one's conceit; to hamper one's action. In French, Rogner les ailes [à quelqu'un].
   To lend wings. To spur one's speed.

“This sound of danger lent me wings.”
R. L. Stevenson.

   To take one under your wing. To patronise and protect. The allusion is to a hen gathering her chicks under her wing.
   To take wing. To fly away; to depart without warning. (French, s'envoler.

Wings of Azrael (The). (See Azrael. )

Winged Rooks Outwitted sharpers. A rook is a sharper, and a rookery the place of resort for sharpers. A rook is the opposite of a pigeon; a rook cheats, a pigeon is the one cheated.

“This light, young, gay in appearance, the thoughtless youth of wit and pleasure- the pigeon rather than the rook- but the heart the same sly, shrewd, cold-blooded calculator.”- Sir W. Scott: Peveril of the Peak, chap. xxviii.

Winifred (St.). Patron saint of virgins, because she was beheaded by Prince Caradoc for refusing to marry him. She was Welsh by birth, and the legend says that her head falling on the ground originated the famous healing well of St. Winifred in Flintshire. She is usually drawn like St. Denis, carrying her head in her hand. Holywell, in Wales, is St. Winifred's Well, celebrated for its “miraculous” virtues.

Winkle (Rip van). A Dutch colonist of New York. He met with a strange man in a ravine of the Kaatskill Mountains. Rip helps him to carry a keg, and when they reach the destination Rip sees a number of odd creatures playing nine-pins, but no one utters a word. Master Winkle seizes the first opportunity to take a sip at the keg, falls into a stupor, and sleeps for twenty years. On waking, his wife is dead