I wrote elsewhere about what might be called ossified words, that is, words that are used in one particular phrase or expression but cannot be found anywhere else in Modern English. Two examples I have mentioned were the groom part of bridegroom (from an Old English word for 'man'). and tide in the saying time and tide wait for no man (and in yuletide and one or two other words).
Here are some more I'd like to submit: spic and span (maybe not used very much anymore but once the name of a household cleaning product). I understand it's related to brand as in brand new; hence we might say spic and span new.
How about in the nick of time? Nick apparently means something like an 'exact moment'.
How about quick? I think the quick and the dead might be a biblical phrase. Elsewhere the word survives in quicksand, quicklime, and quicksilver, a term for mercury (the Romans called mercury argentum vivum, that is, 'living silver' or, of course, 'quicksilver'.
Cobweb. From an old word coppe meaning 'spider'.
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