Chapter Crude Forms to Cucking-stool of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Crystalline (3 syl.). The Crystalline sphere. According to Ptolemy, between the “primum mobile” and the firmament or sphere of the fixed stars comes the crystalline sphere, which oscillates or has a shimmering motion that interferes with the regular motion of the stars.

“They pass the planets seven, and pass the `fixed'
And that crystalline sphere, whose balance weighs
The trepidation talked (of).”
Milton: Paradise Lost, iii.

Cub An ill-mannered lout. The cub of a bear is said to have no shape until its dam has licked it into form.

“A bear's a savage beast, of all
Most ugly and unnatural;
Whelped without form until the dam
Has licked it into shape and frame.”
Butler: Hudibras, i. 3.

Cuba The Roman deity who kept guard over infants in their cribs and sent them to sleep. Verb cubo, to lie down in bed.

Cube A faultless cube. A truly good man; a regular brick. (See Brick.)

O g wz alhqwz agaqoz kai teragwuoz aueu yogou     - Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, i. 11, sec. 11.

Cucking-stool (The) or Choking-stool, for ducking scolds, is not connected with choke (to stifle), but the French choquer; hence the archaic verb cuck (to throw), and one still in use, chuck (chuck-farthing). The cucking-stool is the stool which is chucked or thrown into the water.

“Now, if one cucking-stool was for each scold,
Some towns, I fear, would not their numbers
hold." Poor Robin (1746).