Chapter Cuckold to Cunobelin's Gold Mines of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Cuffy A negro; both a generic word and proper name.

“Sambo and Cuffey expand under every sky.” - Mrs. Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Cui bono? Who is benefited thereby? To whom is it a gain? The more usual meaning attached to the words is, What good will it do? For what good purpose? It was the question of Judge Cassius. (See Cicero: Pro Milone, 12, sec. 32.)

“Cato, that great and grave philosopher, did commonly demand, when any new project was propounded unto him, cui bono, what good will ensue in case the same is effected?” - Fuller: Worthies (The Design, i.).

Cuirass Sir Arthur's cuirass was “carved of one emerald, centred in a sun of silver rays, that lightened as he breathed.” (Tennyson: Elaine.)

Cuishes or Cuisses (2 syl.). Armour for the thighs. (French, cuisse, the thigh.)

“Soon o'er his thighs he placed the cuishes
bright.” Jerusalem Delivered, book xi.

“His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed.”
Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV., iv. 1.

Cul de Sac (French). A blind alley, or alley blocked up at one end like a sack. Figuratively, an argument, etc., that leads to nothing.

Culdees A religious order of Ireland and Scotland, said to have been founded in the sixth century by St. Columba. So called from the Gaelic cylle-dee (a house of cells) or ceilede (servants of God, ceile, a servant). Giraldus Cambrensis, going to the Latin for its etymology, according to a custom unhappily not yet extinct, derives it from colo-deus (to worship God).

Cullis A very fine and strong broth, well strained, and much used for invalids. (French, coulis, from couler, to strain.)

Cully A fop, a fool, a dupe. A contracted form of cullion, a despicable creature (Italian, coglione). Shakespeare uses the word two or three times, as “Away, base cullions!” (2 Henry VI., i. 3), and again in Taming of the Shrew, iv. 2 - “And makes a god of such a cullion.” (Compare GULL.)

“You base cullion, you.”
Ben Jonson: Every Man in his Humour, iii. 2.

Culminate (3 syl.). Come to a crisis. The passage of a celestial body over the meridian at the upper transit is called its culmination. (Latin, culmen, the top.)

Culross Girdles The thin plate of iron used in Scotland for the manufacture of oaten cakes is called a “girdle,” for which Culross was long celebrated.

“Locks and bars, plough-graith and barrow-teeth! and why not grates and fireprongs, and Culross girdles?” - Scott: Fair Maid of Perth, chap. ii.

Culver Pigeon. (Old English, colver; Latin, columba; hence culver- house, a dove-cote.)

“On liquid wing,
The sounding culver shoots.”
Thomson: Spring 452.

Culverin properly means a serpent (Latin, colubrinus, the coluber), but is applied to a long, slender piece of artillery employed in the sixteenth century to carry balls to a great distance. Queen Elizabeth's “Pocket Pistol” in Dover Castle is a culverin.

Culverkeys The keys or flowers of the culver or columba, i.e. columbine. (Anglo-Saxon culfre, a dove.)

Cum Grano Salis With its grain of salt; there is a grain of wheat in the bushel of chaff, and we must make the proper abatement.

Cum Hoc, Propter Hoc Because two or more events occur consecutively or simultaneously, one is not necessarily the outcome of the other. Sequence of events is not always the result of cause and effect. The swallows come to England in the spring, but do not bring the spring.

“[Free trade and revival of trade] says Lord Penzance, came simultaneously, but, he adds, `There is no