Brewer's: Dover

(A). A réchauffé or cooked food done over again. In the professional slang of English cooks a resurrection dish is still called a dover (do over again).

Dover

When Dover and Calais meet—i.e. never.

A jack of Dover.
A “jack” is a small drinking vessel made of waxed leather, and a “jack of Dover” is a bottle of wine made up of fragments of opened bottles. It is customary to pour the refuse into a bottle, cork it up, and sell it as a fresh bottle. This is called dovering, a corruption of do-over, because the cork is done over with wax or resin.

“Many a jack of Dover hast thou sold.”

Chaucer: Coke's Prologue.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Related Content