Spanish Idioms With Their English Equivalents, Embracing Nearly Ten Thousand Phrases

Proverbs. Don Quixote, in several editions and translations (including the late translation with critical list of proverbs by John Ormsby, London, and Gil Blas have been carefully studied; and notes of idioms were made in reading many other works finally, memoranda were kept of such as occurred in conversation during a period of two years. These means cannot be exhaustive, but we believe that few common, important, or valuable phrases have escaped us. In rendering the idioms into English, the first object was to make their meaning intelligible; the second. To give equivalent English idioms where such could be found: in many cases, however, the pithiness of the original is best retained by a simple translation. Renderings found in previous publications were adopted only when it seemed impossible to improve upon them, and it has been found necessary to correct many downright errors of translation. Our thanks are due to Commander Henry Glass, of the United States Navy, for examining and improving the translations of the nautical phrases.