Chapter Sphinx to Spirited Away of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

into the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, one of the witnesses deposed “that the countess wished him to get the strongest poison that he could ...” Accordingly he brought seven great spiders.

“There may be in the cup
A spider steeped, and one may drink, depart,
And yet partake no venom.”
Shakespeare: Winter's Tale, ii. f.

   Spider. According to old wives' fable, fever may be cured by wearing a spider in a nutshell round the neck.

“Cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in a nutshell.” Longfellow: Evangeline.

   Spiders will never set their webs on a cedar roof. (Caughey: Letters, 1845.)
   Spiders spin only on dark days.

“The subtle spider never spins,
But on dark days, his slimy gins.”
S. Butler: On a Nonconformist. iv

   Spider. The shoal called the Shambles at the entrance of Portland Roads was very dangerous before the break- water was constructed. According to legend, at the bottom of the gigantic shaft are the wrecks of ships seized and sunk by the huge spider Kraken, called also the fish-mountain.

Spidireen or Spidereen. The anonyma of ships. If a sailor is asked what ship he belongs to, and does not choose to tell, he will say, “The spidireen frigate with nine decks.” Officers who will not tell their quarters, give B.K.S. as their address. (See B.K.S.)

Spigot Spare at the spigot and spill at the bung. To be parsimonious in trifles and wasteful in great matters, like a man who stops his beer-tub at the vent-hole and leaves it running at the bung-hole.

Spilt Milk (See Cry .)

Spindle-half The female line. A Saxon term. The spindle was the pin on which the thread was wound from the spinning-wheel. (See Spear-Half .)

Spinning Jenny Jennie is a diminutive and corruption of engine ('ginie). A little engine invented by James Hargreaves, a Lancashire weaver, in 1767. It is usually said that he so called it after his wife and daughter; but the name of his wife was Elizabeth, and he never had a daughter.

Spinoza's System The “system of Spinoza” is that matter is eternal, and that the universe is God.

Spinster An unmarried woman.
   The fleece which was brought home by the Anglo-Saxons in summer, was spun into clothing by the female part of each family during the winter. King Edward the Elder commanded his daughters to be instructed in the use of the distaff. Alfred the Great, in his will, calls the female part of his family the spindle side; and it was a regularly received axiom with our frugal forefathers, that no young woman was fit to be a wife till she had spun for herself a set of body, table, and bed linen. Hence the maiden was termed a spinner or spinster, and the married woman a wife or “one who has been a spinner.” (Anglo-Saxon, wif, from the verb wyfan or wefan, to weave.)
    The armorial bearings of women are not painted on a shield, like those of men, but on a spindle (called a “lozenge”). Among the Romans the bride carried a distaff, and Homer tells us that Kryseis was to spin and share the king's bed.

Spirit To give up the spirit. To die. At death the “spirit is given back to Him who gave it.”

Spirit-writing Pneumatology. Alleged visible writing by spirits.

Spirits Inflammable liquors obtained by distillation. This is connected with the ancient notion of bottle- imps (q.v.), whence these liquors were largely used in the black arts.
   Spirits. There are four spirits and seven bodies in alchemy. The spirits are quicksilver, orpiment, sal-ammoniac, and brimstone. (See Seven Bodies.)

“The first spirit quyksilver called is;
The secound orpiment: the thrid I wis
Sal armoniacand the ferth bremstoon.”
Chaucer: Prol. of the Chanounes Yemanes Tale.

   Spirits. There were formerly said to be three in animal bodies:-
   (1) The animal spirits, seated in the brain; they perform through the nerves all the actions of sense and motion.
   (2)