#DEFINITION OF CHESSY CAT ARCHIVE#

The first instance to reach Australia is from ' The Safety, or Plenipo Pills' in the Australian (March 6, 1835):

There are numerous additional matches for the phrase from the first half of the nineteenth century in the British newspaper archives. (Here the whole class laughed, in which the lecturer himself heartily joined.) Now this expression won't do for The Lancet. and having spread his pills in certain magical directions on the parlour floor, he pulled out his square box of sand, formed a horoscope, pronounced several cabalistic words, fetched some deep groans, gave some talismanic knocks on the door, and, finally, distorting his countenance, and grinning like a Cheshire cat, he exclaimed, You are a happy thrice happy man! your house is so swarmd with rats, both young and old, that in a few days you should, together with your family have been devoured outright but all's well-my art will overcome all!Īlso, from 'Sketches of English Manners,' in the Westmoreland Gazette (March 13, 1819):įor example, when I went out to the library t'other day, there you stood like a stake, staring like a stuck pig, and grinning like a Cheshire cat, instead of having a respectful and composed compearance, and putting your hand to your hat!Īnd from 'Bristol Imports,' in the Bristol Mirror (January 22, 1825):Įvery day making all the wry faces in the world one day having the mouth and chin drawn up, another grinning like a Cheshire cat.

#DEFINITION OF CHESSY CAT ARCHIVE#

The earliest match in the British Newspaper Archive Collection is from the Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal (September 5, 1809): (Why do cats grin in Cheshire? Because it was once a county palatine, and the cats cannot help laughing whenever they think of it, though I see no great joke in it.)Ī county palatine is a district ruled by a noblemen with some degree of autonomy from the crown. I made a pun the other day, and palmed it upon Holcroft, who grinned like a Cheshire cat. O, if successful, thou wilt be ador'd! / Wide as a CHESHIRE CAT our COURT will grin, / To find as many Pearls and Gems on board / As will not leave thee room to stick a pinĪnother early instance is in a letter from Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning (February 26, 1808): A PAIR of LYRIC EPISTLES to Lord MACARTNEY and his SHIP. Interestingly, a slightly different wording appears in an untitled item in The London Chronicle (August 30, 1792):

Yet, if successful, thou wilt be ador'd-/ Lo, like a Cheshire cat our Court will grin!/ How glad to find as many gems on board,/ As will not leave thee room to stick a pin! The allusion to the expression by 'Peter Pindar' ( John Wolcot) appears in The Edinburgh Magazine (September 1792), where it appears as an extract from ' A Pair of Lyric Epistles to Lord Macartney and his Ship': What is the origin of the expression (the saying, not the grin)?Įarly references to the grinning Cheshire cat What is the earliest known instance of the saying? Is it still Peter Pindar's? N & Q, 1850.īridge goes on to present several theories that attempt to explain the origin of the expression, none of which he seems to find especially compelling. The first query was as follows : - ' Will some of your correspondents explain the origin of the phrase ' Grinning like a Cheshire Cat'? The ingenious theory of somebody, I forget who, that Cheshire is a County Palatine and that the cats, when they think of it, are so tickled that they can’t help grinning, is not quite satisfactory. Numerous attempts have been made to elucidate it in Notes and Queries and other books, but with no result. Its present popularity is undoubtedly due to the humorous use made of it in ' Alice in Wonderland.'

Darlington says that he has never heard it used. That it is not, and never has been, a very common saying in the County. ' Lo ! like a Cheshire cat our court will grin.' c. The first known mention of it is in the works of Peter Pindar (John Walcot, M.D.). That it is not an old saying and no old writer or old collection of Proverbs gives it. Probably the best known of all our County proverbs, and yet it must at once be said :. From John Cox Bridge, Cheshire Proverbs and Other Sayings and Rhymes Connected with the City and County Palatine of Chester (1917) : But the saying is at least half a century older. Most people are familiar with the expression 'grin like a Cheshire cat' from Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (1865), which goes so far as to provide a glimpse of the grin without the cat.

Definition of chessy cat