The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (283 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs
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HUNGER drives the wolf out of the wood
Cf. early 14th-cent. Fr.
la fains enchace le louf dou bois
, hunger chases the wolf from the wood.
1483
Cato
B6
V
As hunger chaceth the wolfe out of the wode thus sobrete [sobriety] chaseth the deuyl fro the man.
1591
Second Fruits
125
Hunger driues the wolfe out of the wood, if I had not great neede of monie, you should neuer haue them so dog cheape.
1748
Gil Blas
(1749) IV. XII. vii.
This one .. I own is the child of necessity. Hunger, thou knowest, brings the wolf out of the wood.
1872
Works
(1897) III. 323
Hunger, proverbs say, allures the wolf from the wood.
1905
Line of Love
iv.
Hunger .. causes the wolf to sally from the wood.
hunger
;
necessity
HUNGER is the best sauce
Cf. CICERO
De Finibus
II. xxviii.
cibi condimentum esse famem
, hunger is the spice of food; early 15th-cent. Fr.
n'est sauce qui vaille fain
, there is no sauce worth so much as hunger.
1530
Eclogues
(EETS) II. 743
Make hunger thy sause be thou neuer so nice, For there shalt thou finde none other kind of spice.
1539
Garden of Wisdom
I. B1
He [Socrates] sayd, the beste sawce is hungre.
1555
tr.
P. Martyr's Decades of New World
II. iii.
(margin)
Hunger is the best sauce.
1850
Alton Locke
I. ix.
If hunger is, as they say, a better sauce than any Ude invents, you should spend .. months shut out from every glimpse of Nature, if you would taste her beauties.
1929
Scots Kitchen
iii.
Mere hunger, which is the best sauce, will not produce cookery, which is the art of sauces.
1939
By Shores of Silver Lake
xxi.
‘The gravy is extra good too.’ ‘Hunger is the best sauce,’ Ma replied modestly.
1985
Consuming Passions
ix.
The best of all sauces is hunger engendered by exercise in the open air, and, equally, the best of digestives is pleasant company.
1996
Washington Post
7 Aug. A10
However, just as hunger is the best sauce for unappetizing food, political peril is the best argument for Dole to swallow his skepticism …
food and drink
;
hunger

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