Do you realize what a temptation it was to type: “I may not be dressed up to the nines, but I am at sixes and sevens with myself over the origin of this phrase.” Nope! Argentina doesn’t cry for me!) - Pamela Van Nest.
The literal translation is "seven on top, eight underneath.Dear WD: Is it true that the phrase “At sixes and sevens” - meaning at odds with each other - comes from the seating arrangement used for meetings of the London Guilds? (Please note how I cleverly avoided any Andrew Lloyd Weber references in this question. The phrase bears comparison with the Chinese phrase qi shang ba xia, which has a similar meaning but instead uses the numbers seven and eight. Nowadays they alternate in precedence on an annual basis. In 1484, after more than a century of bickering, the Lord Mayor of London Sir Robert Billesden decided that at the feast of Corpus Christi the companies would swap between sixth and seventh place and feast in each others' halls. The two trade associations, founded in the same year, argued over sixth place in the order of precedence. It is possible that an ancient dispute between the Merchant Taylors' and Skinners' Livery Companies may have helped to popularise the phrase. It dates from the mid-1380s and seems from its context to mean "to hazard the world" or "to risk one's life." These are the riskiest numbers to shoot for, and those who tried for them were considered careless or confused.Ī similar phrase, "to set the world on six and seven," is used by Geoffrey Chaucer in his Troilus and Criseyde.
The phrase probably derives from a complicated dice game called "hazard." It is thought that the expression was originally "to set on cinq and six". To be "at sixes and sevens" is a British English idiom used to describe a state of confusion or disarray. Freebase (0.00 / 0 votes) Rate this definition:
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