subs. (venery).—In pl. = a woman’s paps: also APPLE-DUMPLING SHOP (GROSE) = the bosom: see DAIRIES.
d. 1638. CAREW, A Rapture. The warm firm APPLE, tipp’d with coral berries.
PHRASES and PROVERBIAL EXPRESSIONS. ‘One rotten APPLE decays a bushel’; ‘To take an eye for an APPLE’; ‘As like as an APPLE is like an oyster’; ‘There’s small choice in rotten APPLES’; ‘Won with an APPLE, lost with a nut’; ‘How we APPLES swim’ (= ‘What a good time we’re having’; a reference to the fable of a posse of horse-turds floating down the river with a company of apples).
fl. 1340. DAN MICHEL OF NORTHGATE, The Ayenbite of Inwyt, 1205. A roted EPPEL amang þe holen, makeþ rotie þe yzounde.
1532. MORE, Confutation of Tindale [Works, 689. 1]. Let him take MINE VIE FOR AN APPLE, if …
1579. W. FULKE, Heskins’ Parliament Repealed, 241. Your argument is AS LIKE, AS AN APPLE IS LIKE AN OYSTER.
1596. SHAKESPEARE, Taming of the Shrew, i. 1. 139. Faith, as you say, there’s small choice in rotten APPLES.
1623. SANDERSON, Sermons [Works (1681) I. 195]. Of a wavering and fickle mind; as we say of children: WON WITH AN APPLE, and LOST WITH A NUT.
1672. RAY, Proverbs. See HOW WE APPLES SWIM, quoth the horse-turd.
1860. Cornhill Magazine, Dec., 737. While tumbling down the turbid stream, Lord, love us, HOW WE APPLES SWIM.
1873. J. IRELAND and J. NICHOLS, Hogarth (London, 1875), III. 29. And even this, little as it is, gives him so much importance in his own eyes, that he assumes a consequential air, sets his arms akimbo, and strutting among the historical artists cries, ‘HOW WE APPLES SWIM.’
See ADAM’S APPLE.
