Chapter Soul and Spirit to Speaking of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Sow (to rhyme with “now”). You have got the wrong sow by the ear. Sow is a large tub with two ears or handles; it is used for pickling or sowsing. The expression means, therefore, You have got hold of the wrong vessel, or, as the Latin phrase has it, “Pro amphorâ urceus” (You have brought me the little jug instead of the great gotch). French, seau (a bucket).
   You have got the right sow by the ear. You have hit upon the very thing.
   Sow. (See Pig-Iron.)

Spa or Spa Water. A general name for medical springs. So called from Spa, in Belgium, in the seventeenth century the most fashionable watering-place in Europe.

Spade Why not call a spade a spade? Do not palliate sins by euphemisms.

“We call a nettle but a nettle, and the faults of fools but folly.”- Shakespeare: Coriolanus ii. 1.

“I have learned to call wickedness by its own terms: a fig a fig, and a spade a spade.”- John Knox.

   Spades in cards. A corruption of the Spanish spados, pikes or swords, called by the French piques (pikes).

Spadish Language (In). In plain English without euphuism, calling a spade a “spade.”

“Had I attempted to express my opinions in full `Spadish' language, I should have had to say many harder things.”- Fra Olla.

Spafields (London). So called from “the London Spa,” the name of certain tea-gardens once celebrated for their “spa-water.”

Spagiric Art Alchemy.

Spagiric Food Cagliostro's “elixir of immortal youth” was so called from the Latin word spagiricus (chemical). Hence, chemistry is termed the “spagiric art,” and a chemist is a spagirist.

Spagnaletto [the little Spaniard ]. José Ribera, the painter. Salvator Rosa and Guercino were two of his pupils. (1588-1656.)

Spaie A red deer of the third year.

“The young male is called in the first yeere a calfe, in the second a broket, the third a spaie, the fourth a stagon or stag, the fifth a great stag, the sixth an hart, and so foorth unto his death.”- Harrison.

Spain Château d'Espagne. (See Castle .)
   Patron saint of Spain. St. James the Greater, who is said to have preached the Gospel in Spain, where what are called his “relics” are preserved.

Span New (See Spick .)

Spaniel The Spanish dog, from espanñol, through the French.

Spanish Blades A sword is called a toledo, from the great excellence of the Toletan steel.

Spanish Brutus (The). Alfonzo Perez de Guzman (1258-1309). Lope de Vega has celebrated this hero. When besieged, he was threatened with the death of his son, who had been taken prisoner, unless he surrendered. Perez replied by throwing a dagger over the walls, and his son was put to death in his sight.

Spanish Main The circular bank of islands forming the northern and eastern boundaries of the Caribbean Sea, beginning from Mosquito, near the isthmus, and including Jamaica, St. Domingo, the Leeward Islands, and the Windward Islands, to the coast of Venezuela in South America.

“We turned conquerors, and invaded the main of Spain.”- Bacon.