Chapter Termagant to Teutonic Knights of T by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Terza Rima A poem in triplets, in which the second or middle line rhymes with the first and third lines of the succeeding triplets. In the beginning of the poem lines 1 and 3 rhyme independently, and the poem must end with the first line of a new triplet. Dante's Divine Comedy is in this metre, and Byron has adopted it in The Prophecy of Dante. The scheme is as follows.-
   -1a
   x2a feel (a new rhyme for 1b and 3b).
   -3a
   1b heal
   x2b cries (a new rhyme for 1c and 4c).
   3b steal
   1c skies
   2c place - (a new rhyme for 1d and 3d)
   3c arise
   1d race
   x2d ( a new rhyme for 1e and 3e)
   3d space
   etc etc.

Tesserarian Art The art of gambling. (Latin, tessera, a die.)

Tester A sixpence. Called testone (teste, a head) because it was stamped on one side with the head of the reigning sovereign. Similarly, the head canopy of a bed is called its tester (Italian, testa; French, teste, tête). Copstick in Dutch means the same thing. Worth 12d. in the reign of Henry VIII., but 6d. in the reign of Elizabeth.

“Hold, there's a tester for thee.”- Shakespeare: 2 Henry IV., iii. 2.

   Testers are gone to Oxford, to study at Brazenose. When Henry VIII, debased the silver testers, the alloy broke out in red pimples through the silver, giving the royal likeness in the coin a blotchy appearance; hence the punning proverb.

Tete-a-tete A confidential conversation.

Tete Bottee [Booted Head ]. The nickname of Philippe des Comines.

“You, Sir Philip des comines, were at a hunting-match with the duke your master; and when he alighted after the chase, he required your services in drawing off his boots. Reading in your looks some natural resentment, he ordered you to sit down in turn, and rendered you the same office. ... but ... no sooner had he plucked one of your boots off than he brutally beat it about your head ... and his privileged fool Le Glorieux gave you the name of Tito Bottée.”- Sir W. Scott: Quentin Durward. chap. xxx.

Tete du Pont The barbiean or watch-tower placed on the head of a drawbridge.

Tether He has come to the end of his tether. He has outrun his fortune; he has exhausted all his resources. The reference is to a cable run out to the bitter end (see Bitter End ), or to the lines upon lines in whale fishing. If the whale runs out all the lines it gets away and is lost.
   Horace calls the end of life “ultima linca rerum, ” the end of the goal, referring to the white chalk mark at the end of a racecourse.

Tethys The sea, properly the wife of Oceanos.

“The golden sun above the watery bed
Of hoary Tethys raised his beamy head.”
Hoole's Ariosto, bk. viii.

Tetragrammaton The four letters, meaning the four which compose the name of Deity. The ancient Jews never pronounced the word Jehovah composed of the four sacred letters JHVH. The word means “I am,” or “I exist” (Exod. iii. 14); but Rabbi Bechai says the letters include the three times- past, present, and future. Pythagoras called Deity a Tetrad or Tetractys, meaning the “four sacred letters.”
   The words in different languages: -
   Arabic, ALLA.
   Assyrian, ADAD.
   Brahmins, JOSS.
   Danish, GODH.
   Dutch, GODT.
   East Indian, ZEUL and ESAI.
   Egyptian, ZEUT, AUMN, AMON.
   French, DIEU.
   German, GOTT.
   Greek, ZEUS.
   Hebrew, JHVH, ADON.
   Irish, DICH.
   Italian, IDIO.
   Japanese, ZAIN.
   Latin, DEUS.
   Malayan, EESF.
   Persian, SORU, SYRA.
   Peruvian, LLAN.
   Scandinarian, ODIN.
   Spanish, DIOS.
   Sredish, OODD, GOTH.
   Syriac, ADAD.
   Tahitan, ATUA.
   Tartarian, TYAN.
   Turkish, ADDI.
   Vaudois, DIOU.
   Wallachian, SEUE.

“Such was the sacred Tetragrammaton.
Things worthy silence must not be revealed.”
Dryden: Britannia Rediviva.

   [We have the Egyptian , like the Greek .]

Tetrapla The Bible, disposed by Origen under four columns, each of which contained a different Greek version. The versions were those of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodosian, and the Septaugint.