half-a-dozen

half-a-dozen

1. Alternative form of half a dozen.
   • 1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VII, in Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. , volume II (The Bride of Lammermoor), Edinburgh: [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, ; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. , →OCLC, page 172:

     [P]ray, step down to the cellar and fetch us a bottle of the Burgundy, 1678—it is the fourth bin from the right-hand turn—And I say, Craigie—you may fetch up half-a-dozen whilst you are about it—Egad, we'll make a night on't.

   • 1828, David Macbeth Moir, The Life of Mansie Wauch: Tailor in Dalkeith, page 203:

     […] except about half-a-dozen which fell into the porritch-pot, which was on boiling at the time, were reduced to a heap of grey aizles.

   • 1828, The London Magazine, page 449:

     He must do one of these two things: in the first case, his ministry may daunder on till there is another strike of half-a-dozen, like the present; in the latter, it will be blown about his ears, from without.

   • 1833, Arabella Sullivan, Recollections of a Chaperon‎, volume 1, London: Richard Bentley, page 229:

     He especially recommended the only shoemaker who, to his mind, had an idea of making a shoe; and Lucy had at least half-a-dozen pair made, fitted, and descanted upon, before he was satisfied that they did justice to the shape of her foot, which proved extremely good when it was properly chaussé.

   • 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, “Of the Internal Economy of Dotheboys Hall”, in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, , published 1839, →OCLC, page 69:

     Obedient to this summons there ranged themselves in front of the schoolmaster's desk, half-a-dozen scarecrows, out at knees and elbows, one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath his learned eye.

   • 1846, Charles Dickens, The Battle of Life:

     But, now, the Bird of Paradise was seen to flutter down the middle; and the little bells began to bounce and jingle in poussette; and the Doctor's rosy face spun round and round, like an expressive peg-top highly varnished; and breathless Mr. Craggs began to doubt already, whether country dancing had been made 'too easy,' like the rest of life; and Mr. Snitchey, with his nimble cuts and capers, footed it for Self and Craggs, and half-a-dozen more.

   • 1855, Sir Richard Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah, Dover, published 1964, page 54:

     half-a-dozen huge bread pills, dipped in a solution of aloes or cinnamon water, flavoured with assafœtida, which in the case of the dyspeptic rich often suffice [...].

   • 1857, Charles Kingsley, “Still Life”, in Two Years Ago, volume I, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 45:

     Up jump half-a-dozen off the logs and baulkings, where they have been squatting, doubled up knee to nose, after the fashion of their class; and a volley of execrations, like a storm of grape, almost blows the two offenders off the wall.

   • 1863, J[oseph] Sheridan Le Fanu, “How an Evening Passes at the Elms, and Dr. Toole Makes a Little Excursion; and Two Choice Spirits Discourse, and Hebe Trips In with the Nectar”, in The House by the Church-yard. , volume II, London: Tinsley, Brothers, , →OCLC, pages 275–276:

     And he would tell her all sorts of wonders, old-world gaieties, long before she was born; and how finely the great Mr. [George Frideric] Handel played upon the harpischord in the Music Hall, and how his talk was in German, Latin, French, English, Italian, and half-a-dozen languages beside, […]

   • 1864, John Ormsby, “A Ramble with the Lion-Hunters”, in Autumn Rambles in North Africa, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, pages 198–195:

     Not without some difficulty, however: Cheret said he took as much killing as two lions or half-a-dozen boars.

   • 1865, Grantley Berkeley, “Eton Boys”, in My Life and Recollections, volume 1, page 311:

     Then there was a wild scuffle and a furious outcry, and all the bargemen for a moment seemed to hug me and themselves too; when, as there was no room to hit out, in the phraseology of the ring, I fibbed at half-a-dozen waistcoats and faces with all my might and main.

   • 1866, Thomas Tod Stoddart, An Angler's Rambles and Angling Songs, page 46:

     Previous to their descent, I caught in all, not far from the tideway, about half-a-dozen finnocks, on two or three different occasions.

   • 1871 February 8, “Occasional Notes”, in The Pall Mall Gazette, volume XIII, number 1869, page 4:

     These vulgar drunkardesses are only fit themes for such papers as the Alliance News; and yet socially their degeneration may be productive of more harm than the demoralizing influence of half-a-dozen eau-de-cologne swillers in Mayfair or Belgravia.

   • 1879 April 1, H. M. S., “Queries and Replies”, in Charles Nash Abbott, editor, The British Bee Journal, and Bee-Keeper’s Adviser, volume VI, number 72, Southall: the Office ; London: Kent and Co., , Query No. 300 (Small Swarm), page 235:

     If I were to order a small swarm of Ligurians, and on arrival give them half-a-dozen combfuls of brood, but clear of bees, from as many hives, of course they would do well; […]

   • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, “The Sending of Dana Da”, in In Black and White, Folio Society, published 2005, pages 423–4:

     This was signed by Dana Da, who added pentacles and pentagrams, and a crux ansata, and half-a-dozen swastikas, and a Triple Tau to his name, just to show that he was all he laid claim to be.

   • 1888, The Phrenological Magazine, volume 4, page 143:

     Look at them—scrutinise them, and see if every question of the day is not written there—written in indelible ink for future ages to read. They are “writ large” in the faces of half-a-dozen of the foremost men, and repeated in text in the host of lesser men. Take those three photographs that are “placed in the line,” as it were—Lord Salisbury, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. John Dillon. In that trio you have the whole of the Irish question, from A to Z, and, if you throw in Mr. Parnell, with his smooth, mild, and inscrutable countenance, you have the “amparzand.”

   • 1890 November 7, Lie. Vict. Gaz.:

     He went in a perisher last night, laying against Sir Tatton Sykes for the Derby with a half-a-dozen thousand pound notes in his hands, all of which he will lose.

   • 1891 April 3, “Four Frenchwomen”, in The Morning Post, number 37,067, London, page 3, column 2:

     It was to the last class that [Stéphanie Félicité,] Madame belongs, and perhaps her boast of her knowledge of half-a-dozen languages, and her proficiency on no fewer than nine instruments, among them what Victor Hugo called “the bug-pipes,” and of her acquaintance with field labour and gardening, may simply mean that she was Jill of all trades and mistress of none; […]

   • 1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter XIV,

     A rough coffin was made during the night and at the grave half-a-dozen of the line men with Strangway, Stanley, Talmud, the doctor and a couple of rouseabouts constituted the mourners.

   • 1895, M. H. Spielmann, The History of "Punch"‎:

     Then, after an anonymous draughtsman, "M.S.R.," had appeared with a single cut ("Candles"), Mr. F. Wilfrid Lawson, the elder brother and teacher of Cecil Lawson, contributed a sheetful of initials and vignettes which dribbled forth in the paper up to 1876; and Mr. T. Walters, a half-a-dozen, up to 1875. Mr. E. J. Ellis, now better known in other fields than comic draughtsmanship, began on December 12th, 1867.

   • 1896, Grant Allen, A bride from the desert - Page 31:

     But even before he could do so, half-a-dozen black Somanlis, now eager for gain, interposed their strong arms to prevent such culpable waste of good saleworthy slave stuff.

   • c. 1898, William Cowper Brann, Speaking of Gall:

     Now half-a-dozen more little pauper princelings and decadent dukelings are trying to trade their worthless coronets for American cash.

   • 1900, Grant Allen, chapter 1, in Linnet‎:

     As for Will Deverill, less critical of Nature’s handicraft, he found the inns over-civilised; the Post and the Bräu were too fine for his taste: they had come thus far in search of solitude and Alpine wilds, and they lighted instead on a sort of miniature Grindelwald, with half-a-dozen inns, a respectable café, experienced (or in other words extortionate) guides, and a regular tourist-trap for the sale of chamois-horns and carved models of châlets.

   • 1903, Samuel Butler, chapter 41, in The Way of All Flesh:

     Theobald spoke as if watches had half-a-dozen purposes besides time-keeping, but he could hardly open his mouth without using one or other of his tags, and "answering every purpose" was one of them.

   • 1925, Geoffrey Pomeroy Dennis, Harvest in Poland:

     There were about half-a-dozen of them; Lane, the rowing blue, and a swine I know in Magdalen, and a couple of toothbrushless Taffies […]

   • 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, chapter 30, in Ada, or, Ardor: A Family Chronicle, Harmondsworth, London: Penguin Books, published 1970, →ISBN, part 1, page 144:

     Rumors, carefully and cleverly circulated by Mascodagama’s friends, diverted speculations toward his being a mysterious visitor from beyond the Golden Curtain, particularly since at least half-a-dozen members of a large Good-will Circus Company that had come from Tartary just then […] had already defected between France and England, somewhere in the newly constructed ‘Chunnel.’

   • 2007, Mark Griffith, The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound, →ISBN, page 72:

     It might be objected that the ratio depends on the exigencies of the drama, that e.g. short anapaestic passages of only half-a-dozen or so metra plus their paroemiac might be required in some plays, not in others, and thus lower the ratio for those plays.

   • 2009, Tim Winton, “Silent Country: Travels through a Recovering Landscape”, in Robyn Davidson, editor, The Best Australian Essays 2009, page 18:

     During the original AWC^{[Australian Wildlife Conservancy]} survey, Alexander Baynes identified, in a single hollow salmon gum, 283 jaws of half-a-dozen native mammal species, mostly dunnarts, many of which were recovered from owl pellets.

   • 2019 December 18, Christian Wolmar, “Overdue investment and a better deal for Welsh railways”, in Rail, page 54:

     The good news is that £800 million is allocated to new rolling stock, £200m for stations (including six new ones), and a further £736m to transform the Valley Lines, a network of half-a-dozen services that run up the valleys from Cardiff.