Читать книгу Bees Knees and Barmy Armies - Origins of the Words and Phrases we Use Every Day - Harry Oliver - Страница 34

To ‘lead by the nose’ is to have control over someone – to have them do exactly what you want. The phrase derives from the practice of leading cart-drawing animals such as horses, donkeys and mules, whose nose would have a ring pierced through it so that a rope could be attached with which to control them. Cart animals have been led by the nose for millennia, but figurative reference to it dates back to the sixteenth century.