Chapter Planet-struck to Pleasure of P by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Planet-struck to Pleasure

Planet-struck A blighted tree is said to be planet-struck. Epilepsy, paralysis, lunacy, etc., are attributed to the malignant aspects of the planets. Horses are said to be planet-struck when they seem stupefied, whether from want of food, colic, or stoppage. The Latin word is sideratus.

“Evidentissimum id fuit, quod quacunque equo invectus est, ibi haud secus quam pestifero sidere icti pavebant.”- Livy, viii. 9.

Plank (A). Any one principle of a political platform. (See Platform. )

Plank To walk the plank. To be about to die. Walking the plank was a mode of disposing of prisoners at sea, much in vogue among the South Sea pirates in the 17th century.

Plantagenet from planta genista (broom-plant), the family cognisance first assumed by the Earl of Anjou, the first of his race, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, as a symbol of humility. (Sir George Buck: Richard III.) Died 1622.

Plaster of Paris Gypsum, found in large quantities in the quarries of Montmartre, near Paris.

Plate (A). A race in which a prize is given out of the race fund, or from some other source, without any stakes being made by the owners of the horses engaged. Usually entrance money is required. (See Sweepstakes, Handicap, Plate, Selling Race, Weight-For-Age Race .)
    Plate, meaning silver, in the Spanish plata.

Platen, among printers, is the power or weight which presses on the tympan (q.v.), to cause the impression of the letters to be given off and transferred to the sheet. (French, plat, flat.)
    In type-writing machines, the platen is the feeding roller on which the paper rests to receive the proper impressions.

Plates or Plates of Meat. Slang for feet. One of the chief sources of slang is rhyme. Thus meat rhymes with feet, and “warming my plates” is slang for warming my feet. Similarly, “Rory O'More” is slang for door, and “there came a knock at the Rory O'More” means there was a knock at the door. A prescott is slang for waistcoat (See Chivy. )

Platform, in the United States, is the policy of a political or religious party. Of course the meaning is the policy on which the party stands. An American revival. Each separate principle is a plank of the platform.
   Queen Elizabeth, in answer to the Supplication of the Puritans (offered to the Parliament in 1506), said she “had examined the platform, and account it most prejudicial to the religion established, to her crown, her government, and her subjects.”
   Again, the Rev. John Norris writes, in 1687, that Plato said, “God created twu outwv metra, implying that all things were formed according to His special platforms, meaning the ideas formed in the divine mind.”
   The word has been resuscitated in North America. Lily, in 1581, says he “discovered the whole platform of the conspiracie.” (Discovery of the New World, p. 115.)

“Their declaration of principles- their `platform,' to use the appropriate term- was settled and published to the world. Its distinctive elements, or `planks,' are financial.”- The Times.

Plato His original name was Aristocles, but he was called Platon from the great breadth of his shoulders.
   The German Plato. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819).
   The Jewish Plato. Philo Judaeus, an Alexandrine philosopher. (Flourished 20-40.)
   The Puritan Plato. John Howe, the Nonconformist (1630-1706).

Plato and the Bees When Plato was an infant, some bees settled on his lips when he was asleep, indicating that he would become famous for his honeyed words. The same is said of Sophocles, Pindar, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, and others.

“And as when Plato did i' the cradle thrive.
Bees to his lips brought honey from their hive.”
W. Browne: Britannia's Pastorals, ii.

Plato's Year A revolution of 25,000 years, in which period the stars and constellations return to their former places in respect to the equinoxes.

“Cut out more work than can be done
In Plato's year, but finish none.”
Butler: Hudibras, pt. iii. 1.

Platonic Bodies The five regular geometric solids described by Plato- viz. the tetrahedron, hexahedron, octhedron,