Dictionary of Phrase and Fable—X

Xantippe

or Xanthippe (3 syl.). Wife of the philosopher Socrates. Her bad temper has rendered her name proverbial for a conjugal scold.

Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,
As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates' Xanthippe, or a worse,
She moves me not.

Shakespeare: Taming of the Shrew, i 2.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
Xenocrates
Xanthus.
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