WORD WIZARDRY

GUESS THE DEFINITION: Xebec (1756)

a) a lively jig. B) a ship with three masts. C) a dancer’s belt. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED

A miss is as good as a mile — a proverbial saying from the early 17th century, referring to the fact that a narrow miss is as bad as a wide one — in that both are failures. The original 1614 saying was ‘ an ynche in a misse is as good as an ell’. (a now obsolete measure of length, an ell was about 45in.)