Citations:four-and-twenty

English citations of four-and-twenty

Number

				1744	1853 1881	1922	2005
ME «	15th c.	16th c.	17th c.	18th c.	19th c.	20th c.	21st c.

• Douay-Rheims Bible. 1 Chronicals Ch.27 v.2

  Over the first company the first month Jesboam, the son of Zabdiel was chief, and under him were four and twenty thousand.

• 1744, Sing a Song of Sixpence, in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book (earliest known written version)

  Sing a Song of Sixpence, / A bag full of Rye, / Four and twenty Naughty Boys,/ Baked in a Pye.

• 1851, John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, p 496

  ..., a powder horn, a pound of powder, twelve flints, four-and-twenty balls of lead, a cartridge box, ...

• 1883, Charles Dickens, The life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, p 44

  When he blew this bugle, four-and-twenty other gentlemen of inferior rank, ..., turned out directly.

• 1922, A. E. Housman, Last Poems, XII, The Deserter, lines 13, 15-16

  Oh love is rare and trouble plenty

  And daylight dear at four-and-twenty:

  Lie down again and sleep.

• Monday June 20, 2005, The Guardian newspaper

  Jamba has removed from Marlowe's Doctor Faustus all but the barest of essentials - even half its title, leaving us with an 80-minute hurtle through Faustus's four and twenty borrowed years on earth.