wife (a more complicated form); rank and file ‘the ordinary working members of an organisation’ (the origin of this expression is military life, it denotes common soldiers); ways and means ‘methods of overcoming difficulties’.
A+N: green room ‘the general reception room of a theatre’ (it is said that formerly such rooms had their walls coloured green to relieve the strain on the actors’ eyes after the stage lights); high tea ‘an evening meal which combines meat or some similar extra dish with the usual tea’; forty winks ‘a short nap’.
