1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, Vol. i., p. 240. We had the Greeks (the lately arrived Irish) down upon us more than once. 1872. Standard, 3 Sept. ‘Melbourne Correspondence.’ The most noticeable point of comparison between the two Administrations is the presence or the absence of the Greek element from the Cabinet. Greek, as some of your readers are aware, is colonial slang for ‘Irish.’ 4. (thieves’).—A gambler. Also a highwayman. Merry Greek, subs. phr. (old).—A roysterer; a drunkard. Cotgrave. [In Latin, Graecare = to play the Greek—high-living and hard drinking.] 1602. Shakspeare, Troilus and Cressida, iv., 4. A woful Cressid ’mongst the merry Greeks. Greek Fire, subs. phr. (thieves’).—Bad whiskey; Rotgut (q.v.). 1889. Clarkson and Richardson, Police, p. 321, s.v. Greek Kalends, 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.) c. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth. Consid. Parlt., 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, 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, Poet Breakf. T. 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 Mag., 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). Green, subs. (common).—1. Rawness; simplicity. Generally, ‘Do you see any green in my eye’? = Do you take me for a fool? See adj. sense. 1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, ii., 247. I’m not a tailor, but I understands about clothes, and I believe that no person ever saw anything green in my eye. 1892. Ally Sloper, 19 Mar., p. 95, c. 2. Ally Sloper the ’cute, Ally Sloper the sly, Ally Sloper, the cove with no green in his eye.