tell noses

English

Etymology

From tell (“to count, reckon, or enumerate”) + noses.

Verb

tell noses (third-person singular simple present tells noses, present participle telling noses, simple past and past participle told noses)

1. (archaic) Synonym of count noses (“to count people one at a time; to determine the number of supporters of a particular politician or issue”).
   • 1684, Great Britain. Court of King's Bench, The Arraignment, Tryal & Condemnation of Algernon Sidney, Esq. for High-treason, B. Tooke, page 61:

     Another Noble Lord, my Lord Clare tells you, that he had ſome Diſcourſe with my Lord Howard, and he ſaid, that if he were accuſed, he thought they would but tell Noſes and his busineſs was done.

   • 1709, William Oldisworth, A Dialogue between Timothy and Philatheus, volume 1:

     E'er they had toſs'd up Heads, or told Noſes, to prevent their being bloody, and to ſtay Fiſticuffs and Quarterſtaff.

   • a. 1746 (date written), Jonathan Swift, “From Jonathan Swift to Robert Hunter”, in Thomas Sheridan and John Nichols, editors, The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, […], new edition, volume XI, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1801, →OCLC:

     I have not yet obſerved the tories noſes; their number is not to be learnt by telling noſes, for every tory has not a noſe.

   • 1842, William Goode, The Divine Rule of Faith and Practice, page 244:

     This will be a very hard thing, especially for unlearned men to tell noses: we can know the opinion only of those Fathers who were the writers in every age, and whose writings have been preserved down to us; and who can tell, whether the major number of those Fathers who did not write, or whose writings are lost, were of the same mind with those writings we have?

References

• “tell noses”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.