"A principle isn’t a principle until it is tested, so it is said. For a worrying amount of people, the belief that debts to society are paid via the corrections system seems to have found its limit in the case of Ched Evans, which makes one wonder just how muddled their philosophising has got. Or how important the Championship has become – do take your pick between these bizarre options."
In recent years, fast-food restaurants have added a raft of premium-priced items like smoothies and oatmeal to menus to draw in more health-conscious consumers and appease heath advocates taking aim at processed food manufactures. None have become top sellers.
expressed epistolically
The
U.K. regulatory review of whether BSkyB is fit to hold a broadcast
license, in light of News Corp.'s minority stake, could be a drawn out
affair, and there is little precedent to predict how the process will
play out.
［draw ... in/draw in ...］
(1) 〈人を〉引き込む, 呼び［おびき］寄せる；〈人を〉だます.(2) 〈空気などを〉吸い込む.
(3) 〈経費などを〉切り詰める.
(4) 〈歩幅などを〉縮める；〈手綱などを〉引き締める.
(5) 〈概略を〉描く.
drawn out
- Extending tediously beyond a standard duration: dragging, lengthy, long1, long-drawn-out, overlong, prolonged, protracted. Seeexcite/bore/interest, long/short.
Epistle ： (1) 宗徒書信；使徒書信：早期教會流行傳閱宗徒所寫的書信。後來教宗也蕭規曹隨，以牧函 papal epistle 方式向普世教會傳達資訊，又稱 encyclical （ world letter ）。 (2) 書信：彌撒中宣讀的書信。拉丁文稱作 Epistola 。
epistle side ：書信邊（側）；書信位置：昔日彌撒中讀書信的一邊（側），在祭台的左方（面對祭台時則為右方）。
Epistles, Pastoral ：牧靈書信：保祿所寫涉及牧靈問題的三篇書信，即弟茂德前、後書和弟鐸書。
Epistola （ L. ）：書信。同 Epistle 。
epistolary ：書信集：在彌撒中誦讀的書信集；拉丁文稱作 epistolarium 。
Ephesians, Epistle to the ：厄弗所書；以弗所書（基）：新約保祿書信之一，寫於其被俘時期，指出基督的教會宛如基督的妙身：基督是首，與肢體－信徒合而為一，同時信徒彼此間也應密切連系。
epistle
(ĭ-pĭs'əl) 
n.
n.
- A letter, especially a formal one. See synonyms at letter.
- A literary composition in the form of a letter.
- Epistle Bible.
- One of the letters included as a book in the New Testament.
- An excerpt from one of these letters, read as part of a religious service.
[Middle English epistel, from Old French epistle, from Latin epistola, from Greek epistolē, from epistellein, to send a message to : epi-, epi- + stellein, to send.]
nine
(nīn)
n.
- The cardinal number equal to 8 + 1.
- The ninth in a set or sequence.
- Something having nine parts, units, or members.
- Games. A playing card marked with nine pips.
- A set of nine persons or things, especially:
- Baseball. The nine players on a side, or the whole team.
- Nine Greek Mythology. The nine Muses.
- A size, as in clothing or shoes, designated as nine.
- Sports. The first or second 9 holes of an 18-hole golf course.
to the nines Informal.
- To the highest degree: dressed to the nines.
[Middle English, from Old English nigon.]
nine nine adj. & pron. Dressed to the nines
(Note: we had this phrase before, about two years ago. I'm not running out of phrases - a suggestion as to the origin that I hadn't heard before cropped up on my Facebook site. That turned out to be incorrect, but it did prompt me into a rewrite of this little essay.)Meaning
Dressed flamboyantly or smartly.
Origin
Nine is the most troublesome number in etymology. There are several phrases of uncertain parentage that include the word. Examples are, cloud nine, nine days' wonder and the infamous whole nine yards. We can add 'dressed to the nines' to that list.
The most frequently heard attempts to explain the phrase's derivation involve associating the number nine with clothing in some way. One theory has it that tailors used nine yards of material to make a suit (or, according to some authors, a shirt). The more material you had the more kudos you accrued, although nine yards seems generous even for a fop. Another commonly repeated explanation comes from the exquisitely smart uniforms of the 99th (Lanarkshire) Regiment of Foot, which was raised in 1824. The problem with these explanations is that they come with no evidence to support them, apart from a reference to the number nine (or 99, which seems to be stretching the cloth rather thinly). The regiment was in business in the early 19th century, which is at least the right sort of date for a phrase that became widely used in the middle of that century.
The first example of the use of the phrase that I can find in print is in Samuel Fallows' The Progressive Dictionary of the English Language, 1835. In his entry for the phrase 'to the nines' Fallows gives the example 'dressed up to the nines' and suggests that it "may perhaps" be derived from 'to thine eynes' - to the eyes. Not bad as a hypothesis, but without any evidence (and I can find none) 'may perhaps' is as far as we can go with that.
What counts against the above explanations is the prior use of the shorter phrase 'to the nine' or 'to the nines', which was used to indicate perfection, the highest standards. That was in use in the 18th century, well before 'dressed to the nines' was first used, as in this example from William Hamilton's Epistle to Ramsay, 1719:
The bonny Lines therein thou sent me,
How to the nines they did content me.
It is worth noting that the number nine has long been used as a superlative. The Nine Worthies were characters drawn from the Pagan and Jewish history and from the Bible. The Nine Worthies, usually called simply The Nine, were well-known to mediaeval scholars as the personification of all that was noble and heroic. The Poetick Miscellenies of Mr John Rawlett, 1687, provides the earliest reference to 'to the Nine' that I can find:And Poets most who still make their address
In private to the Nine.
It is clear that 'the Nine' that Rawlett was referring to were the Nine Worthies. It is just as clear that 'dressed to the nines' is merely an extension of 'to the nine/s' and that we could equally well 'dance to the nines' or 'philosophize to the nines'. The search for the link between 'nines' and dress sense has unearthed no convincing candidates. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but I'll stick my neck out here and say, with this phrase and with the other 'nines' phrases, 'nine' doesn't refer to anything specific - it just means 'a lot'.
philosophize
Line breaks: phil|oso¦phize
Pronunciation: /fɪˈlɒsəfʌɪz
/
/
Derivatives
Definition: EPISTOLICAL
| Part of Speech | Definition |
| Adjective | 1. Pertaining to letters or epistles; in the form or style of letters; epistolary.[Websters] 2. Rarely used base adjective of the adverb epistolically.[Eve - graph theoretic] |
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