E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Cal’iban.
Rude, uncouth, unknown; as a Caliban style, a Caliban language. The allusion is to Shakespeare’s Caliban (The Tempest), in which character Lord Falkland, etc., said that Shakespeare had not only invented a new creation, but also a new language.
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“Satan had not the privilege, as Caliban, to use new phrases, and diction unknown.”—Dr. Bentley.
Coleridge says, “In him [Caliban, as in some brute animals, this advance to the intellectual faculties, without the moral sense, is marked by the appearance of vice.”
(Caliban is the “missing link” between brute animals and man.)
