Idioms From 19th Century English Poetry
Idioms From 19th Century English Poetry

Summary/Abstract: The growing popularity of poems, aided by the spread of literacy and of the printed word, meant that some of these literary works became widely known and frequently cited. Some of their lines and phrases began an independent life at a certain point and have since then been used as idioms both in spoken and in written language. The present paper traces a handful of these to their origins in 19th century English poems in order to better understand how they acquired their present meaning as idioms.

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