Chapter Ludlum to Lupus in Fabula of L by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Ludlum to Lupus in Fabula

Ludlum (See Lazy.).

Luez (See Luz.)

Luff The weather-gauge. The part of a vessel towards the wind. A sailing close to the wind. (Dutch, loef, a weather-gauge.)
   To luff is to turn the head of a ship towards the wind.
   Luff!- i.e. Put the tiller on the leeside. This is done to make the ship sail nearer the wind.
   Luff round! Throw the ship's head right into the wind.
   Luff a-lee! Same as luff round.
   A ship is said to spring her luff when she yields to the helm by sailing nearer the wind.
   Keep the luff. The wind side.

Lufra Douglas's dog, “the fleetest hound in all the North.” (Sir Walter Scott: Lady of the Lake, v. 25.) (See Dog .)

Luggie The warlock who, when storms prevented him from going to sea, used to sit on “Luggie's Knoll.” and fish up dressed food.

Luggnagg An island mentioned in Gulliver's Travels, where people live for ever. Swift shows the evil of such a destiny, unless accompanied with eternal youth. (See Struldbrugs .)

Luke (St.). Patron saint of painters and physicians. Tradition says he painted a portrait of the Virgin Mary. From Col. iv. 14 he is supposed to have been a physician.
   St. Luke, in Christian art, is usually represented with an ox lying near him, and generally with painting materials. Sometimes he seems engaged painting a picture of the Virgin and infant Saviour, his descriptions of the early life of the Saviour being more minute than that of the other envangelists. Metaphrastus mentions the skill of St. Luke in painting; John of Damascus speaks of his portrait of the Virgin (p. 631: Paris, 1712). Many pictures still extant are attributed to St. Luke; but the artist was probably St. Luke, the Greek hermit; for certainly these meagre Byzantine productions were not the works of the evangelist. (See Lanzi: Storia Pittorica dell' Italia, ii. 10.)
   St. Luke's Club or The Virtuosis. An artists' club, established in England by Sir Antonio Vandyke, and held at the Rose Tavern Fleet Street. There was an academy of St. Luke founded by the Paris artists in 1391; one at Rome, founded in 1593, but based on the “Compagnia di San Luca” of Florence, founded in 1345; a similar one was established at Sienna in 1355.
   St. Luke's Summer, called by the French Vété de S. Martin; hence the phrase “L'été de la S. Denis á la S. Martin,” from October 9th to November 11th, meaning generally the latter end of autumn.

“... St. Luke's short summer lived these men,
Nearing the goal of threescore years and ten
." Morris: Earthly Paradise (March).

   As light as St. Luke's bird (i.e. an ox). Not light at all, but quite the contrary. St. Luke is generally represented writing, while behind him is an ox, symbolical of sacrifice. The whole tableau means that Luke begins his gospel with the priest sacrificing in the Temple.
   Matthew is symbolised by a man, because he begins his gospel with the manhood of Jesus as a descendant of David; Mark, by a lion, because he begins his gospel with the baptism in the wilderness; John, by an eagle, because he begins his gospel by soaring into heaven, and describing the pre-existing state of the Logos.

Luke's Iron Crown George and Luke Dosa headed an unsuccessful revolt against the Hungarian nobles in the early part of the sixteenth century. Luke (according to Goldsmith) underwent the torture of the red-hot iron crown, as a punishment for allowing himself to be proclaimed king. History says it was George, not Luke. (The Traveller.)

Lullian Method A mechanical aid to the memory, by means of systematic arrangements of ideas and subjects, devised by Raymond Lully, in the thirteenth century.

Lumber (from Lombard). A pawn-broker's shop. Thus Lady Murray writes: “They put all the little plate they had in the lumber, which is pawning it, till the ships came home.”