"The beasts are in the shambles."
(Cloister and Hearth, Ch. 33.)
etymologically misusing the word, which does not mean slaughter-house, but the bench on which meat is exposed for sale. It is a very early loan from Lat. scamnum, a bench or form, also explained by Cooper as "a step or grice (see p. [118]) to get up to bedde." The same diminutive form occurs in Fr. escabeau, an office stool, and Ger. Schemel, a stool.
Fusty, earlier foisty, is no longer used in its proper sense. It comes from Old Fr. fusté, "fusty; tasting of the caske, smelling of the vessell wherein it hath been kept" (Cotgrave), a derivative of Old Fr. fust (fût) a cask.[83]
The smith's art has given us brand-new, often corrupted into bran-new. Shakespeare uses fire-new—
"You should then have accosted her; and with some excellent jests, fire-new from the mint, you should have banged the youth into dumbness."
(Twelfth Night, iii. 2.)
Modern German has funkelnagelneu, spark nail new; but in older German we find also spanneu, splinterneu, chip new, splinter new; which shows the origin of our spick and span (new), i.e., spike and chip new. French has tout battant neuf, beating new, i.e., fresh from the anvil.
Many old hunting terms survive as metaphors. To be at bay, Fr. aux abois, is to be facing the baying hounds. The fundamental meaning of Old Fr. abaier (aboyer), of obscure origin, is perhaps to gape at.[84] Thus a right or estate which is in abeyance is one regarded with open-mouthed expectancy. The toils are Fr. toiles, lit. cloths, Lat. tela, the nets put round a thicket to prevent the game from escaping. To "beat about the bush" seems to be a mixture of two metaphors which are quite unlike in meaning. To "beat the bush" was the office of the beaters, who started the game for others, hence an old proverb, "I will not beat the bush that another may have the birds." To "go about the bush" would seem to have been used originally of a hesitating hound. The two expressions have coalesced to express the idea for which French says "y aller par quatre chemins." Crestfallen and white feather belong to the old sport of cock-fighting. Jeopardy is Old Fr. jeu parti, a divided game, hence an equal encounter. To run full tilt is a jousting phrase. To pounce upon is to seize in the pounces, the old word for a hawk's claws. The ultimate source is Lat. pungere, to prick, pierce. A goldsmith's punch was also called a pounce, hence the verb to pounce, to make patterns on metal. The northern past participle pouncet[85] occurs in pouncet-box, a metal perforated globe for scents—
"And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose, and took't away again."