Careful Words

tub (n.)

tub (v.)

  Do not believe what I tell you here any more than if it were some tale of a tub.

Martin Luther (1483-1546): Works. Book iv. Chap. xxxviii.

  Seamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): Tale of a Tub. Preface.

  Every tub must stand upon its bottom.

Charles Macklin (1690-1797): The Man of the World. Act i. Sc. 2.