lief or loath │ I cried out with an exceeding loud and bitter cry and beat my face and rent my raiment and said: “Verily we be Allah's and unto Him we be returning, O Moslems! O folk fain of Allah! There remained for this youth but one day of the forty dangerous days which the astrologers and the learned had foretold for him, and the predestined death of this beautiful one was to be at my hand. Would Heaven I had not tried to cut the watermelon! What dire misfortune is this I must bear, lief or loath? What a disaster! What an affliction! O Allah mine, I implore thy pardon and declare to Thee my innocence of his death. But what God willeth, let that come to pass.”
cark and care │ Why do I see thee thus changed and laden with cark and care?
conversing and carousing
toil and moil │ “O King of the Time and Caliph of the Tide, only toil and moil have tinged my face yellow with bile and hath made my eyes sink deep in my head.”
talk and tattle
persuading and dissuading
delectable and delightsome │ ‘O my sister, an thou be not sleepy, relate to me some new story, delectable and delightsome, the better to speed our waking hours.’
weal and woe
gifts and largess │ what while the drums beat and the flutes and pipes sounded and mimes and mountebanks played and plied their arts and the King lavished on them gifts and largess,
satin and silk
donning and doffing
regret and repine │ So he put away his melancholy and despondency, regret and repine, and allayed his sorrow by constantly repeating those words, adding, “'Tis my conviction that no man in this world is safe from their malice!”
bane and blight │ Shall ne'er be free of bane and blight.
prate and prattle
liberality and generosity
betwixt and between
by hook or by crook
liege and lief
parry and thrust?
surety and bond
bubble and squeak?
let and hindrance?
might and main │ main means physical strength. Both word means the same thing, and together they mean the same thing.
metes and bounds │ mete means boundary line. Metes and Bounds is used often in legal texts of deeds. Metes and bounds is a old fashioned way of measuring land.
The following are more like idioms.
time and tide wait for no man │ Time does not stop for someone.
better or worth │ usually used as in “[something something]… for better or worse.”, meaning regardless of some evaluation or aspect of the subject matter.”. Akin to “anyway.”.
thick and thin │ e.g. “thru thick and think” meaning thru good times as well as bad times. Thick meaning rich, thin meaning poverty.
The following are supplied by Troy Steadman (from alt.english.usage)
but and ben │ just over the threshold and deeply into a house.
froth and lime │ (Shakespeare) dilute and adulterate drinks.
dog and bone │ phone (Cockney rhyming slang in general UK usage).
wild and woolly │ mammoth-like
back and forth │ as a swing
hither and thither │ ditto
overs and unders │ variation from anticipated
bag and baggage │ luggage
duck and dive │ survive by doing whatever needs to be done
banks and braes │ grassy tussocks and hills
Thanks to Troy Steadman ＆ Pat Durkin for contribution.
If you know anymore, please write to me. Criterion: it must be two words connected by And or Or, and in a way recognizable almost as a idiom.
The 2 words often have similar meaning, used together more for its chantable quality. (e.g. cease and desist, tear and wear, wiles and strategems) Or, the 2 words often are opposites, used to denote a situation that's one or the other, often uncritically. (e.g. nature or nurture, fight or flight, art or science, publish or perish)