barefaced lie/liar

A shamelessly bold untruth/prevaricator. Bare here means bold-faced or brazen, but one writer speculates that barefaced, which dates from the late sixteenth century, originally meant “beardless,” a condi- tion perhaps considered audacious in all but the youngest men. In any event, by the late seventeenth century it also meant bold and became attached to lie in succeeding years. See also NAKED TRUTH.

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American dream,

The  image  of  prosperity,  achievable  through  hard work. A political cliché invoked by candidates, it was used by Alexis de Toc- queville in Democracy in America (1835) but may be even older. In 1975 psycho- analyst  David Abrahansen  was  quoted  as  saying, “The American  dream  is  in part  responsible  for  a  great  deal  of  crime  and  violence, because  people  feel that  the  country  owes  them  not  only  a  living  but  a  good  living.” A  similar cliché of even less precise definition is the American way, evoking an image of democracy, fairness, and other desirable traits.

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half a mind

See HAVE A GOOD/HALF A MIND.

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half a loaf is better than none

Something is better than nothing, even if it is not all you wanted. This expression was already a proverb in John Heywood’s 1546 collection. G. K. Chesterton repeated it in his essay, What’s Wrong with the World: “Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf.”

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hale and hearty

Healthy and vigorous. This term, which dates from the mid-nineteenth century, is redundant, since hale and hearty both mean “healthy.” It survived, no doubt, because of its pleasing alliteration. Thomas Hardy used it in The Dynasts (1903): “We be the King’s men, hale and hearty.”

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hair shirt

A self-imposed punishment or penance. The term comes from the medieval practice of doing penance by wearing a shirt made of coarse haircloth (made from horsehair and wool), mentioned from the thirteenth century on in numerous sources, including Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (The Second Nun’s Tale). It also appears in a couplet by Alexander Pope (1737), “No prelate’s lawns with hair-shirt lin’d is half so incoherent as my mind.” See also SACKCLOTH AND ASHES.

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hair of the dog

A small amount of what made one ill might be used as a remedy; recipe for curing a hangover. This expression appeared in John Heywood’s Proverbs of 1546 (“I pray thee let me and my fellow have a haire of the dog that bit us last night”) and alludes to the even older folk remedy of treating a dog bite by placing the burnt hair of a dog on the wound.
Although having a drink is a dubious cure for the aftereffects of alcoholic
overindulgence, the expression is still used, and occasionally is transferred
to other matters.

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