Chapter Drawcansir to Drivelling Dotage of D by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Drink Deep Drink a deep draught. The allusion is to the peg tankards. Those who drank deep, drank to the lower pegs. (See Peg.)

"We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart."
-Shakespeare: Hamlet. i. 2.

Drinke and Welcome One of the numerous publications of John Taylor, the Water Poet (1637). The subject is thus set forth. "The famous Historie of the most parts of Drinks in use now in the Kingdomes of G. Britaine and Ireland; with an especiall declaration of the potency, vertue, and operation of our English Ale. With a description of all sorts of Waters, from the Ocean-sea to the Teares of a Woman. As also the causes of all sorts of weather, faire or foule, sleet, raine, haile, frost, snow, fogges, mists, vapours, clouds, stormes, windes, thunder, and lightning. Compiled first in High Dutch Tongue by the painefull and industrious Huldricke van Speagle, a grammatical brewer of Lubeck; and now most learnedly enlarged, amplified, and translated into English verse and prose, by John Taylor, the Water Poet."

Drink like a Fish (To). To drink abundantly. Many fish swim with their mouths open.

Drinking Healths was a Roman custom. Thus, in Plautus, we read of a man drinking to his mistress with these words: "Bene vos, bene nos, bene te, bene me, bene nostrum etiam Stephanium " (Here's to you, here's to us all, here's to thee, here's to me, here's to our dear - ). (Stich. v. 4.) Persius (v. l, 20) has a similar verse "Bene mihi; bene vobis, bene amicæ nostræ " (Here's to myself, here's to you, and here's to I shan't say who). Martial, Ovid, Horace, etc., refer to the same custom.
   The ancient Greeks drank healths. Thus, when Theramenes was condemned by the Thirty Tyrants to drink hemlock, he said "Hoc pulcro Critiæ ' - the man who condemned him to death.
   The ancient Saxons followed the same habit, and Geoffrey of Monmouth says that Hengist invited King Vortigern to a banquet to see his new levies. After the meats were removed, Rowena, the beautiful daughter of Hengist, entered with a golden cup full of wine, and, making obeisance, said, "Lauerd kining, wacht heil ' (Lord King, your health). The king then drank and replied, "Drinc heil ' (Here's to you). (Geoffrey of Monmouth, book vi. 12.) Robert de Brunne refers to this custom:

"This is ther custom and hev gest
When they are at the ale or fest;
Ilk man that levis gware him drink
Salle say `Wosseille' to him drink,
He that biddis sall say `Wassaile,'
The tother salle say again `Drinkaille.'
That says `Woisseille' drinks of the cup,
Kiss and his felaw he gives it up."
Robert de Brunne.

    In drinking healths we hold our hands up towards the person toasted and say, "Your health . ." The Greeks handed the cup to the person toasted and said, "This to thee," "Græci in epulis poculum alicui tradituri, eum nominare solent." Our holding out the wine-glass is a relic of this Greek custom.

Drinking Song The oldest in the language is in the second act of Gammer Gurton's Needle, by John Still, called The Jolly Bishop. It begins

"I cannot eat but little meat.
My stomach is not good."

Drinking at Freeman's Quay that is, drinking gratis. At one time, all porters and carmen calling at Freeman's Quay, near London Bridge, had a pot of beer given them gratis.

Drive (Anglo-Saxon drif-an.)
   To drive a good bargain. To exact more than is quite equable.

"Heaven would no bargain for its blessings drive."Dryden: Astræa Redux, i 137.

   To drive a roaring trade. To be doing a brisk business. The allusion is to a coachman who drives so fast that his horses pant and roar for breath.
   To drive the swine through the hanks of yarn. To spoil what has been painfully done, to squander thrift. In Scotland, the yarn wrought in the winter (called the gude-wife's thrift) is laid down by the burn-side to bleach, and is peculiarly exposed to damage from passing animals. Sometimes a herd of pigs driven along the road will run over the hanks, and sometimes they will stray over them from some neighbouring farm-yard and do a vast amount of harm.

Drive at (To). What are you driving at? What do you want to prove? What do you want me to infer? We say the "wind drove against the sails," i.e. rushed or moved violently against them. Falstaff tells us