THROAT occurs in a few colloquialisms: e.g., TO LIE IN ONE’S THROAT = to lie flatly: an expression of extreme indignation; TO CUT ONE ANOTHER’S THROATS = to engage in CUTTHROAT (q.v.) competition or conduct ruinous to either; TO CUT ONE’S OWN THROAT (or TO CUT THE THROAT OF) = to ruin oneself, to shipwreck chances or interests; TO HAVE ONE’S THROAT LINED = to be void of taste; to wish for A THROAT A MILE LONG AND A PALATE AT EVERY INCH OF IT (= a modern echo of Rabelais: see quot. 1694). See BONE; STICK.
1637. R. HUMPHREY, St. Ambrose, Preface. This CUTS THE THROAT of that misconceived opinion.
1630. TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Travels, from London to the Isle of Wight, 14.
| And therefore Reader understand and note, | |
| Who ever sayes I lye, he LIES IN’S THROATE. |
1692. SIMON PATRICK, An Answer to the Touchstone, 10. This, which CUTS THE THROAT of the Roman cause.
1694. MOTTEUX, Rabelais, V. xlii. Tell me, noble strangers, are your THROATS LINED, paved, or enamelled … that you can have missed the taste, relish, and flavour of this divine liquor? Ibid Oh! that to keep the taste longer, we gentleman topers had but NECKS SOME THREE CUBITS LONG OR SO.
1824. STANHOPE, Greece, 12. Generals … who CUT THEIR OWN THROATS by word of command.
1867. FROUDE, Short Studies on Great Subjects (2nd ed.), 114. They … believed that Elizabeth was CUTTING HER OWN THROAT.
1886. St. James’s Gazette, 12 April. Gentlemen who supply, or try to supply, the public with cheap literature seem specially fond of that curious amusement known as CUTTING ONE ANOTHER’S THROATS.
