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Updated: May 26, 2025
N.E. This is, perhaps, as old as Philip and Mary. TO SPREAD ONE'S SELF is defined by Mr. Bartlett "to exert one's self." It means rather to exert one's self ostentatiously. It is a capital metaphor, derived, we fancy, from the turkey-cock or peacock, like the Italian pavoneggiarsi. We find in the Tatler "spreading her graces in assemblies." This last, however, may be a Gallicism, from etaler.
He stopped, and, leaning over the back of the sofa on which she reclined, repeated an Italian line in which was the word "pavoneggiarsi." "My dear Lady Cecilia, you, who understand and feel Italian so well, how expressive are some of their words! Pavoneggiarsi! untranslatable. One cannot say well in English, to peacock oneself.
To make oneself like unto a peacock is flat; but pavoneggiarsi action, passion, picture, all in one! To plume oneself comes nearest to it; but the word cannot be given, even by equivalents, in English; nor can it be naturalised, because, in fact, we have not the feeling.
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