| 词汇 | bring home the bacon |
| 词源 | bring home the bacon. An English custom initiated in 1111 and lasting until late in the 18th century provided that any married couple who swore that they hadn’t quarreled for over a year, or had not at any time wished themselves “single again”— and could prove this to the satisfaction of a mock jury some- times composed of six bachelors and six maidens—was entitled to the Dunmow Flitch, a side of bacon awarded at the church of Dunmow in Essex County. The expression to bring home the bacon, “to win the prize,” isn’t recorded until 1925, but bacon was used as a word for “prize” centuries before, and most schol- ars believe that the Dunmow Flitch is responsible for the usage. This custom, along with the popular American one of awarding the pig to the winner of “greased-pig” events at county fairs, gives us the phrase, which now means to support a family by working. |
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