beer and skittles

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#1·4h ago

(chiefly, UK, idiomatic) times; pleasure and leisure.

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.

Origin: 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). Origin information sourced from Wiktionary contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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