Sit

subs. (American printers’).—Situation: e.g., OUT OF A SIT = out of a job.

  PHRASES.—TO SIT ON ONE’S KNEES = to kneel; TO SIT UNDER = to attend the ministry of some particular divine; TO SIT A WOMAN = to keep the NIGHT-COURTSHIP (q.v.): cf. BUNDLE; TO SIT ON (or UPON) = (1) to take to task, to snub—in anger, contempt, or jest: also SAT-UPON, adj. = reprimanded, snubbed; and (2) to allow milk to brim in the pan; TO SIT EGGS = to outstay one’s welcome; TO SIT IN = to adhere firmly; TO SIT UP = to pull oneself together; TO MAKE ONE SIT UP = to astonish, disconcert, or get an advantage. See also BODKIN, SKIRTS.

  1474–85.  Paston Letters [ARBER] 235 [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 341. Our slang use of SIT UPON is foreshadowed … the King intends TO SITTE UPPON a criminal; that is, in judgment].

  [?].  The Battle of Balrinnes [CHILD, Ballads, VII. 229].

  1644.  MILTON, On Education. There would then also appear in pulpits other visage, other gestures, and stuff otherwise wrought than what we now SIT UNDER.

  1754.  The Connoisseur, No. 27. The greater part of almost every audience, that SITS UNDER our preachers, are ignorant and illiterate.

  1821.  SCOTT, Kenilworth, xxxii. I protest, Rulland, that while he SAT ON HIS KNEES before me…. I had much ado to forbear cutting him over the pate.

  1830.  SOUTHEY, Life of John Bunyan, 25. At this time he ‘SAT (in puritanical language) UNDER the ministry of holy Mr. Gifford.’

  1852.  Notes and Queries, 1 S., iv. 43. It is said a young man is ‘SITTING A YOUNG WOMAN,’ when he is wooing or courting her.

  1855.  THACKERAY, The Newcomes, ii. Each to SIT UNDER his or her favourite minister.

  1876.  C. H. WALL, trans. Molière, i. 411. The jester shall be SAT UPON in his turn; he shall have a rap over the knuckles, by Jove.

  1880.  A. TROLLOPE, The Duke’s Children, xxvi. Experience had taught him that the less people demanded the more they were ‘SAT UPON.s’

  1883.  PAYN, Thicker than Water, xxi. The only person to whom he had ever known Mary distinctly antagonistic…. He had seen her ‘SIT UPON him’ … ‘rather heavily’ more than once.

  1883.  Referee, 25 March, 2, 4. In the years gone by when I was good, and used to SIT UNDER Newman Hall at Surrey Chapel.

  1888.  G. GISSING, A Life’s Morning, iii. He allowed himself to be SAT UPON gracefully; a snub well administered to him was sure of its full artistic, and did not fail in its moral, effect.

  1891.  LEHMANN, Harry Fludyer at Cambridge, 15. I forgot to open last term’s bills. I found them yesterday all stowed away in a drawer, and they MADE ME SIT UP.

  1893.  ANGELO LEWIS, The Wrong Black Bag, in Chambers’s Journal, 25 Feb., 128. With that SAT-UPON sort of man … you never know where he may break out.

  1902.  Free Lance, 6 Oct., 4, 2. The fashion papers of Paris make even America SIT UP.