beer and skittles
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.78 in modern English
22
Scrabble Score
15
Letters
2
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Well, well, we must bide our time. Life isn't all beer and skittles—but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman's education."
- "Being a soldier's wife isn't all beer and skittles."
- "His plight reveals a truth that's often obscured by the envy of newspaper readers; that it's not all beer and skittles in restaurant-critic land."
- "Such highly intensive deployment left little wriggle room, something with which Dunster is all too familiar. "It hasn't all been beer and skittles," he says dryly."
Etymology
Found as early as 1837, in Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, where it appears in the form, “It’s a reg’lar holiday to them—all porter and skittles”. The most common form, as a negative admonition, appears to have been popularized by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown's School Days (1857, see quotation below).
Usage
- British usage