subs. phr. (colloquial).—Never. To defer anything to the Greek Kalends is to put it off sine die. (The Greeks used no kalends in their reckoning of time.)
1639. DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN, Considerations to the Parliament, Sept. wks. (1711) 185. That gold, plate, and all silver, given to the mint-house in these late troubles, shall be paid at the GREEK KALENDS.
1653. URQUHART, Rabelais, bk. I., ch. xx. The judgment or decree shall be given out and pronounced at the next GREEK CALENDS, that is, never.
1823. BYRON, Don Juan, c. xiii., st. 45.
| They and their bills, ‘Arcadians both,’ are left | |
| To the GREEK KALENDS of another session. |
1825. SCOTT, The Betrothed, Intro. Will you speak of your paltry prose doings in my presence, whose great historical poem, in twenty books, with notes in proportion, has been postponed AD GRÆCAS KALENDAS?
1872. O. W. HOLMES, The Poet at Breakfast-Table, i., 18. His friends looked for it only on the GREEK CALENDS, say on the 31st of April, when that should come round, if you would modernize the phrase.
1882. Macmillan’s Magazine, 253. So we go on … and the works are sent to the GREEK CALENDS.
ENGLISH SYNONYMS.—In the reign of Queen Dick; when the devil is blind; when two Sundays come in a week; at Doomsday; at Tib’s Eve; one of these odd-come-shortlys; when my goose pisses; when the ducks have eaten up the dirt; when pigs fly; in a month of Sundays; once in a blue moon.
FRENCH SYNONYMS.—Mardi s’il fait chaud (obsolete); Dimanche après la grande messe (popular); quand les poules pisseront; semaine des quatre jeudis (popular: when four Thursdays come in a week).
