Meaning of tell noses | Babel Free

Definitions

Synonym of count noses (“to count people one at a time; to determine the number of supporters of a particular politician or issue”).

archaic

Examples

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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?”

CEFR level