E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Buckle.
I can’t buckle to. I can’t give my mind to work. The allusion is to buckling on one’s armour or belt.
1
To cut the buckle. To caper about, to heel and toe it in dancing. In jigs the two feet buckle or twist into each other with great rapidity.
2
“Throth, it wouldn’t lave a laugh in you to see the parson dancin’ down the road on his way home, and the ministher and methodist, praicher cuttin’ the buckle as they went along.”—W. B. Yeats: Fairy Tales of the Irish Peasantry, p. 98 (see also p. 196).
To put into buckle. To put into pawn at the rate of 40 per cent. interest.
3
To talk buckle. To talk about marriage.
4
“I took a girl to dinner who talked buckle to me.”—Vera. 154.
