The custom of spitting on money is common in various parts of the world. In England it was sometimes called handsel and was reputed to bring good luck.
The Annotated Dracula by Leonard Wolf, 1975.
It is recorded that whenever he heard one of his followers sneeze, the Roman emperor Tiberius would say, “Absit omen” (“Let any omen or mischance be absent”), which is a rather backhanded way of saying, “Good luck!”
Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins by William and Mary Morris, 1977.
A combination of the beautiful and the good, the ideal qualities of the Athenian gentleman.
Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Abbreviations by Kevin Guinagh, 1972.
Epicurus, to whom good and pleasure were synonymous, was the first important philosopher to accept women as students.
Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.
Will receive good and important news.
Zolar’s Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Dreams by Bruce King, 1963.
A famous sword of Hako I. of Norway, surnamed “The Good.”
A Dictionary of the Noted Names in Fiction by William A. Wheeler, 1865.
One of the principal gods of the ancient Persians, a personification of the sun. He was regarded as a mediator between the two opposite deities, Ormuzd and Ahriman, or the principle of good and the principle of evil.
A Dictionary of the Noted Names in Fiction by William A. Wheeler, 1865.f
