Red

applied to gold. Hence a gold watch is a “red kettle.”

“Thou shewʹst an honest nature; weepʹst for thy master;

There’s a red rogue to buy the handkerchief.”

Beaumont and Fletcher: Mad Lover, v. 4.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.