Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
give them an inch and they'll take an ell en · X
Meanings
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(alt-of, archaic) Archaic form of give them an inch and they'll take a mile.
I will yet thrive, (I say), as good is an ynch / As an ell. Yee can, (quoth shee), make it so well, / For when I gave you an inch, you tooke an ell, / Till both ell and inch be gone, and we in det.
1546, John Heywood, chapter IX, in Julian Sharman, editor, The Proverbs of John Heywood. […], London: George Bell and Sons, […], published 1874, →OCLC, part II, page 161: