Taken down a peg

"We still have worsted all your holy Tricks,... And took your Grandees down a peg."
- Samuel Butler's Hudibras, 1664


A lot of our older sayings have origins lost in the mists of time. One of these is the idea of taking someone down a peg or two. Some sources suggest that the saying relates to the idea of lowering a ship's colours - the flags being controlled by a series of pegs. I prefer the suggestion that it comes from the peg tankard - one of which, dated 1654 - is shown above. It was called a "Peg-Tankard," from its having a row of silver pegs down the inside, about an inch apart. When sharing drinks from the same tankard each person was supposed to drink only as far as their peg.


A popular game (as described above in the Gentleman's Magazine) was to make anyone who could not stop exactly at a peg to drink again and again, until he hit upon one, before which he was generally intoxicated. This led to not only taking someone down a peg or two but also to the saying of being "a peg too low,' which signifies having 'a drop too much.'