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Old wives' tale   /oʊld waɪvz teɪl/   Listen
Old wives' tale

noun
1.
A bit of lore passed on by word of mouth.





WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University


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"Old wives' tale" Quotes from Famous Books



... that," said the doctor feelingly. "I have known shock close the throat absolutely." He added: "Did you see her sink and rise again twice before Donnington got at her, Varick? I have always wondered whether drowning people always come up three times—or if it's only an old wives' tale." ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... long that on its western height pedestrians looked no bigger than ants. In the heart of the city men were everywhere at work, laying gas and drain-pipes, macadamising, paving, kerbing: no longer would the old wives' tale be credited of the infant drowned in the deeps of Swanston Street, or of the bullock which sank, inch by inch, before its owner's eyes in the Elizabeth Street bog. Massive erections of freestone were going up ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... exposed and reprobated. This little tract was published at Louvain, in 1611, and afterwards at Oxford, in 1634, the very year in which Milton's Comus was written. H. Milton evidently was indebted to the Old Wives' Tale of George Peele for the plan of ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson


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