Etymologie, Etimología, Étymologie, Etimologia, Etymology, (griech.) etymología, (lat.) etymologia, (esper.) etimologio
UK Vereinigtes Königreich Großbritannien und Nordirland, Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte, Royaume-Uni de Grande-Bretagne et d'Irlande du Nord, Regno Unito di Gran Bretagna e Irlanda del Nord, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, (esper.) Britujo
eXterne Wortlisten, (esper.) eksteruloj vortlistoj
XWHist - Word Histories
wordhistories.net
XWHist
Word Histories
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/
word histories
“AD FONTES!”
Erstellt: 2023-01
XWHist
Word Histories
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/
ALPHABETICAL INDEX
A – B – C – D – E – F – G – H – I – J – K – L – M – N – O – P – Q – R – S – T – U – V – W – X – Y – Z – numerals – miscellany
Erstellt: 2023-01
??? (XWHist)
2024-
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2024-09
- ‘galah session’: meanings and origin
- 30th Sep 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- Australia, 1948—a period allocated for private conversation, especially between women on isolated stations, over an outback radio network—by extension (1967): any long chat—‘galah’: a very common Australian cockatoo
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- ‘flat stick’: meaning and origin
- 29th Sep 2024.Reading time 5 minutes.
- New Zealand, 1970—at full speed—perhaps after ‘flat out’ (i.e., with the maximum speed or effort) and after ‘quicksticks’ (i.e., quickly, without delay)
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- an Australian use of the expression ‘sick canary’
- 27th Sep 2024.Reading time 21 minutes.
- has been used with reference to feebleness and ineffectualness since the late 19th century
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- ‘wouldn’t give you a fright if he/she was a ghost’: meaning and early occurrences
- 26th Sep 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- is used of a miserly person—Australia, 1929—UK, 1934
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- ‘couldn’t pick a seat at the pictures’: meaning and origin
- 25th Sep 2024.Reading time 3 minutes.
- is used of an ineffectual person—Australia, 1984—originally used in sports of team selectors
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- ‘drunk as a pissant’: meaning and origin
- 24th Sep 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- extremely drunk—Australia, 1892, as ‘drunk as an ant’—USA, 1925, as ‘drunk as a pissant’ in Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos
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- ‘game as a pissant’: meaning and origin
- 23rd Sep 2024.Reading time 20 minutes.
- also ‘game as an ant’, ‘game as a bulldog ant’, etc.—Australia, 1874—plucky, courageous, willing to put up a fight against considerable odds
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- ‘brown Windsor soup’: meaning and early occurrences
- 22nd Sep 2024.Reading time 16 minutes.
- UK, 1919—a thick brown meat-based soup of a type now often depreciatively depicted as emblematic of traditional British cookery
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- ‘spud-cocky’: meaning and origin
- 20th Sep 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- Australia, 1911—a potato farmer—composed of ‘spud’ (a potato) and ‘cocky’ (a farmer working a small-scale farm)—‘cocky’: shortened form of ‘cockatoo’ (a farmer working a small-scale farm)
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- ‘to disappear up one’s own arse’: meaning and early occurrences
- 19th Sep 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- British slang, 1960s—‘to disappear up one’s own arse’: to become self-involved, pretentious or conceited—‘to be up one’s own arse’: to be self-involved, pretentious or conceited
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- ‘old boiler’: meaning and origin
- 18th Sep 2024.Reading time 21 minutes.
- Australia, 1950—UK, 1962—derogatory and offensive: a middle-aged or elderly woman, especially one who is unattractive or unfeminine—refers to ‘boiler’, i.e., a tough old chicken for cooking by boiling
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- ‘Gloria Soame’: meaning and origin
- 15th Sep 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- Australia, 1965—the Strine equivalent of ‘glorious home’—‘Strine’: the English language as spoken by Australians
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- ‘Ma State’: meaning and origin
- 14th Sep 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
- the State of New South Wales—Australia, 1905—alludes to New South Wales as the ‘mother’ colony, i.e., the first colony that Britain founded in Australia—hence (1908) ‘Ma Stater’, a native or inhabitant of New South Wales
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- ‘brimstone and treacle’: meaning and origin
- 13th Sep 2024.Reading time 17 minutes.
- Britain, 1746—refers to old-fashioned medicinal remedies—notably used by Charles Dickens in ‘The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby’ (1838-39)
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- ‘grey death’: meaning and origin
- 12th Sep 2024.Reading time 5 minutes.
- Australian slang, 1960s—the unpalatable and unnutritious evening stew that used to be served to prison inmates—by extension: any unpalatable item of food
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- ‘the lady’s not for turning’: meaning and origin
- 11th Sep 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- UK, 1980—is used by, or of, a woman who asserts her determination to do what she has decided to do—from Margaret Thatcher’s speech delivered on 10 October 1980 at the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton
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- ‘parkour’: meaning and origin
- 10th Sep 2024.Reading time 5 minutes.
- the discipline of moving rapidly and freely over or around the obstacles presented by an urban environment by running, jumping, climbing, etc.—French—altered spelling of the noun ‘parcours’ in ‘parcours d’obstacles’ (i.e., ‘obstacle course’)
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- ‘elementary, my dear Watson’: meaning and early occurrences
- 6th Sep 2024.Reading time 17 minutes.
- the solution to a problem is very straightforward and easy—UK, 1901—supposedly said by Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson—but this phrase is not (in this form) found in any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories
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- ‘Paralympics’: meaning and origin
- 4th Sep 2024.Reading time 17 minutes.
- an international athletic competition, modelled on the Olympic Games, for disabled athletes—UK, 1953—from the prefix ‘para-‘ in ‘paraplegic’ and ‘-lympics’ in ‘Olympics’—cf. early synonym ‘Paraplegic Games’
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2024-08
- ‘monkey see, monkey do’: meaning and origin
- 24th Aug 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- is used to comment contemptuously on an instance of unthinking imitation, or of learning or performing by rote—USA, 1889—apparently first used by Californian retailers
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- ‘sausage-wrapper’ (i.e., a newspaper)
- 23rd Aug 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.
- colloquially used as a contemptuous appellation for a newspaper that the speaker regards as downmarket—Australia, 1880—but had occurred once (USA, 1874) as ‘bologna sausage wrapper’
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- ‘on the wrong tram’: meaning and origin
- 22nd Aug 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- Australia, 1929—mistaken, astray, following the wrong tactics
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- ‘tarpaulin muster’: meaning and origin
- 21st Aug 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- the collecting of a pool of money, to be used either to provide assistance to some (other) person(s) or cause, or to buy drinks for the contributors—USA, 1863—nautical origin: such funds were originally collected by having the ship’s crew drop their money onto a tarpaulin
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- ‘green cart’: meaning and early occurrences
- 20th Aug 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- the imaginary vehicle supposed to take people to the mental asylum—Australia (1869), New Zealand (1884)—the reason the colour green was chosen is unknown
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- ‘to do a perish(er)’: meaning and origin
- 17th Aug 2024.Reading time 16 minutes.
- to reach, or to be in, a state of extreme privation; to suffer hardship; to die, especially of thirst—New Zealand (miners, 1871) & Australia (1881)
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- ‘to put on jam’: meanings and early occurrences
- 16th Aug 2024.Reading time 24 minutes.
- Australia, 1881—to adopt an affected speech or manner, to display self-importance—also, in early use: to embellish the truth, to depict flatteringly
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- ‘you can’t polish a turd’: meaning and origin
- 15th Aug 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- you cannot improve something which is inherently or unalterably unpleasant, or of poor quality—USA, 1977—originally in reference to rock music
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- ‘couldn’t get a kick in a stable’: meaning and origin
- 14th Aug 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- Australia, 1947—used of any ineffectual Australian-Rules-Football player, and, by extension, of any ineffectual person
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- ‘skateboarding duck’: meaning and origin
- 9th Aug 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.
- UK—a trifling, whimsical news item, especially one that is used as a light-note ending to a television or radio news broadcast—from a short film about a pet duck, first broadcast on the BBC on 24 May 1978
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- ‘without fear or favour’: meaning and origin
- 7th Aug 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- without pressure from, or partiality to, any person or other external influence—1638, as a translation of French ‘sans crainte et sans respect’ (‘without fear and without respect’)
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- ‘Aqua Libra’: meaning and origin
- 5th Aug 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.
- proprietary name for a soft drink supposed to maintain or restore the body’s alkaline balance—Ireland & UK, 1986—from the Latin nouns ‘aqua’ (water) and ‘libra’ (a balance)
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- ‘NEVER A DULL MOMENT’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 4th Aug 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.
- literally: constant variety or interest (originally with reference to theatrical performances; USA, 1879)—ironically: constant variety of troubles, difficulties, etc. (in Three Men in a Boat (1889), by British author Jerome K. Jerome)
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2024-07
- ‘MOLLY THE MONK’: MEANING (AND ORIGIN?)
- 26th Jul 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- rhyming slang for ‘drunk’—Australia, 1952—may have originally alluded to ‘Molly the Monk’, the name given in Australia to various primates kept in captivity or used for entertainment
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- ‘VEE-DUB’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 24th Jul 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- a Volkswagen car—USA, 1967—from the pronunciation of ‘VW’ (initialism from the name ‘Volkswagen’)—‘dub’: shortened form of the adjective ‘double’ in ‘double U’
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- ‘EUREKA MOMENT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 14th Jul 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- a moment of sudden discovery, inspiration or insight—1918—from the reputed exclamation of Archimedes when he realised that the volume of a solid could be calculated by measuring the water displaced when it was immersed
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- ‘MOTHER OF THE HOUSE (OF COMMONS)’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 9th Jul 2024.Reading time 14 minutes.
- the longest serving female member of the British House of Commons—1920—originally applied to Nancy Astor, Member of Parliament from 1919 to 1945—coined after ‘Father of the House (of Commons)’
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- ‘PORTILLO MOMENT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 7th Jul 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
- UK, 2001: the defeat of a high-profile Member of Parliament, indicating a significant political change—originally, UK, 1997: the announcement of Michael Portillo’s defeat, seen as emblematic of the Conservative defeat in the general election
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- ‘CUT-LUNCH COMMANDO’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 1st Jul 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- Australia, 1943, derogatory—a soldier who does not see active service, especially a reservist—from ‘cut lunch’, denoting a packed lunch, typically consisting of sandwiches
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2024-06
- ‘TO PAINT SOMEONE INTO A CORNER’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 28th Jun 2024.Reading time 21 minutes.
- USA, 1929: to force someone into a situation from which it is not easy to escape—the image is of someone who is painting a floor and ends up in a corner of the room with wet paint all around them (USA, 1913)
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- ‘LIKE A LILY ON A DUSTBIN’: MEANINGS AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
- 26th Jun 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- also ‘like a lily on a dirt-tin’ and variants—something or somebody that is incongruous or conspicuous—UK, 1934, but chiefly Australian (from 1948 onwards)
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- ‘TO STIR THE POSSUM’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 25th Jun 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- Australia, 1888—to stir up controversy; to liven things up—also ‘to rouse the possum’ (Australia, 1898)—this phrase probably developed as the obverse of ‘to play possum’
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- ‘TO JOCKEY FOR POSITION’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 23rd Jun 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- literally, of a jockey in horseracing (USA, 1869): to manoeuvre in order to get one’s horse into a desired position at the beginning of a race—figuratively (USA, 1881): to manoeuvre in order to gain advantage over rivals in a competitive situation
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- ‘TO BE PACKED LIKE SARDINES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 22nd Jun 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.
- UK, 1841—to be crowded or confined tightly together, as sardines in a tin
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- ‘POUND SHOP’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 20th Jun 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
- UK & Ireland—a shop that sells a wide range of goods at low prices, typically one pound or less—hence also: of the type or quality found in a pound shop, cheap, second-rate
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- ‘TO HAVE A BÉGUIN FOR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 19th Jun 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- ‘to have a fancy for’—UK, 1900—loan translation from French ‘avoir un béguin pour’—French ‘béguin’ is from ‘s’embéguiner de’, meaning ‘to put on a bonnet’, hence ‘to put a sudden capricious idea into one’s head’
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- A BRITISH USE OF ‘SATELLITE ALLEY’
- 18th Jun 2024.Reading time 3 minutes.
- 1990—a street in which many satellite dishes are attached to the front of the buildings—‘satellite dish’: a bowl-shaped antenna used to view satellite television
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- ‘JOINED-UP WRITING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 17th Jun 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- UK, 1933—cursive handwriting as learnt in elementary school as a stage beyond printing individual letters separately—from the adjective ‘joined-up’, meaning ‘conjoined’
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- ‘BABYCCINO’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 16th Jun 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- a drink of frothy milk, designed as an alternative to coffee for young children—also: a small cup of cappuccino—Australia, 1995—from ‘baby’ and ‘-ccino’ in ‘cappuccino’
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- ‘KNOCKER-UP’ (A WAKENER-UP)
- 15th Jun 2024.Reading time 14 minutes.
- Ireland & Britain, 1850—a person who goes round the streets in the early morning to awaken factory hands—from ‘to knock somebody up’, meaning ‘to awaken somebody by knocking at the door’
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- ‘JOB’S COMFORTER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 13th Jun 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- 1673—a person who aggravates distress under the guise of administering comfort—alludes to Job’s reply to his friends in the Book of Job, 16:2
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- ‘(AS) POOR AS JOB’S CAT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 11th Jun 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.
- ‘extremely poor’—USA, 1810—humorous variant of ‘(as) poor as Job’, from the name of the eponymous protagonist of a book of the Old Testament, taken as the type of extreme poverty
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- ‘(AS) POOR AS JOB’S TURKEY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 10th Jun 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
- ‘extremely poor’—USA, 1817—humorous variant of ‘(as) poor as Job’, from the name of the eponymous protagonist of a book of the Old Testament, taken as the type of extreme poverty
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- ‘SCHOLASTICIDE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 9th Jun 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.
- the systematic destruction of Palestinian education by Israel—apparently coined in 2009 by Karma Nabulsi, Fellow in Politics at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
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- ‘OLD BOY NETWORK’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 8th Jun 2024.Reading time 16 minutes.
- UK, 1950, as ‘old boy net’—a system of favouritism and preferment operating among people of a similar social, usually privileged, background, especially among former pupils of public schools
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- ‘NEPOTISM BABY’ AND ‘NEPO BABY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 7th Jun 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- a person whose career is believed to have been advanced by having a famous or successful relative—‘nepotism baby’ (USA, 1915)—‘nepo baby’ (USA, 2022)
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- ‘DAFFYNITION’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 6th Jun 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- a humorous redefinition of an existing word or phrase, presented as a dictionary definition—USA, 1910—a blend of the adjective ‘daffy’ and of the noun ‘definition’
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- ‘JEAN-AGE’, ‘JEAN-AGER’ AND JEAN-AGED’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 5th Jun 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- refer to the teenage years regarded as an age at which jeans are often worn—USA, from 1946 onwards—punningly after, respectively, ‘teenage’, ‘teenager’ and ‘teenaged’
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- ‘CORRIDOR CARE’ AND ‘CORRIDOR NURSING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 4th Jun 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- Ireland, 1989—treatment given to hospital patients in overcrowded and inappropriate spaces such as corridors and waiting rooms—had been used earlier (UK, 1980) of treatment given to schoolchildren
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- ‘FISH AND CHIPS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 3rd Jun 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- a dish consisting of deep-fried battered fish fillets served with potato chips—Lancashire, England, 1886 (1879, as ‘fried fish and chipped potatoes’)
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- NOTES ON ‘KLEENEX’ IN SIMILES
- 1st Jun 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- USA, 1945—‘Kleenex’ (a proprietary name for a soft, disposable paper tissue) is used in similes expressing, in particular, disposability, ephemerality, fragility, weakness
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2024-5
- ‘KLEENEX MUSIC’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 31st May 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- 1962: a type of popular music that is rapidly discarded—also, 1967: Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, regarded as a lachrymose piece of music by Igor Stravinsky—‘Kleenex’: a proprietary name for a soft, disposable paper tissue
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- ‘NOT ON YOUR NELLY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 30th May 2024.Reading time 17 minutes.
- ‘not under any circumstances’—Royal Air Force slang, 1942—short for ‘not on your Nelly Duff’, i.e., ‘not on your life’, ‘Nelly Duff’ being rhyming slang for ‘puff’ as used colloquially in the sense of ‘life’
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- A SLANG USE OF ‘MUSLIN’ (WOMEN)
- 28th May 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- UK, 1821—‘muslin’: women regarded collectively as objects of sexual desire—‘a bit of muslin’: a woman regarded as an object of sexual desire
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- ‘BUNDLE OF NERVES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 27th May 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- someone who is extremely nervous, worried or tense—UK, 1832—originally (18th century) in physiology: a set of nervous fibres bound closely together
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- ‘SERIAL LIAR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 26th May 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.
- USA, 1985—an inveterate liar—coined after, and in reference to, the expressions ‘serial killer’ and ‘serial murderer’
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- ‘NERVOUS NELLIE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 25th May 2024.Reading time 16 minutes.
- an overly timid, cautious or fearful person—U.S. politics, 1921—originally used of U.S. lawyer and politician Frank B. Kellogg
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- ‘BAKING HOT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 24th May 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- UK, 1833—the expression ‘baking hot’ is used of excessive heat—in this expression, the adverb ‘baking’ is an intensifier
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- ‘TO GET ONE’S ACT TOGETHER’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 23rd May 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- USA, 1900: to get a stage act ready—Canada, 1961: to organise oneself to undertake or achieve something—from ‘to get together’ (i.e., to organise, put in order, harmonise)
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- ‘TO SHOOT A TRAFFIC-LIGHT’: EARLY BRITISH USES
- 22nd May 2024.Reading time 17 minutes.
- also ‘to shoot the red light’, ‘to shoot the amber’, etc.—to drive past a traffic-light when it indicates that one should stop—UK, 1934, as ‘to shoot the lights’
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- ‘TO SHOOT A TRAFFIC-LIGHT’: EARLY AMERICAN USES
- 21st May 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- also ‘to shoot the red light’, ‘to shoot the amber’, etc.—to drive past a traffic-light when it indicates that one should stop—USA, 1926, as ‘to shoot the yellow’
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- ‘LIKE A RAT UP A DRAINPIPE’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 19th May 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.
- very quickly; also, very energetically—Australia, 1881, as ‘like a rat up a pump’
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- ‘JEEVESIAN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 18th May 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- of, or relating to, or characteristic of, or resembling, Jeeves—UK, 1934—refers to Jeeves, the perfect valet in stories by P. G. Wodehouse
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- ‘JEEVES-LIKE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 17th May 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
- Canada, 1928—resembling Jeeves, the perfect valet in stories by the English author Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975); this fictional character first appeared in 1915
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- ‘MILK MONITOR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 16th May 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- a schoolchild responsible for distributing servings of milk to other children—USA, 1922—UK, 1935
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- ‘A FROG IN ONE’S THROAT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 14th May 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- USA, 1808—an irritation in the throat suggestive of an obstruction, producing a temporary croakiness or hoarseness—occasionally associated with the French, probably because ‘frog’ is derogatorily applied to them
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- ‘THAT’S RICH, COMING FROM —’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 13th May 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- UK, 1836—that’s a surprisingly unfair criticism, considering that the person who has just made it has the same fault—here, ‘rich’ means ‘preposterous’, ‘outrageous’
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- ‘A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 12th May 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
- an impressive person or thing, viewed as being difficult to rival or surpass—USA, 1912, in reference to the difficulty faced by an entertainer coming on stage immediately after a popular or successful act
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- ‘STAKHANOVITISM’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 11th May 2024.Reading time 14 minutes.
- a movement, developed in the U.S.S.R. in 1935, aimed at encouraging hard work and maximum output, following the example of Alexei Stakhanov—by extension: exceptionally productive work, excessively intensive work
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- ‘TO DO A VANISHING ACT’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 9th May 2024.Reading time 20 minutes.
- late 19th century—to disappear suddenly without leaving information about one’s whereabouts—from conjuring, in which ‘vanishing act’ designates an act of making a person or thing disappear as if by magic, and an act of disappearing in this manner
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- ‘THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE’: MEANINGS AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
- 7th May 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- a completely isolated, featureless or insignificant place—USA, 1848, as ‘to knock [something or someone] into the middle of nowhere’ with reference to annihilation
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- ‘GIVE SOMEONE AN INCH AND THEY’LL TAKE A MILE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 6th May 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- the slightest concession will be unscrupulously exploited—USA, 1837, in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s diary—a later form of ‘give someone an inch and they’ll take an ell’
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- ‘TO STICK OUT A MILE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 4th May 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
- New Zealand, 1883, as ‘to stick out half a mile’—to be very prominent or conspicuous
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- ‘ONE MIGHT HEAR A PIN DROP’ | ‘ONE CAN HEAR A PIN DROP’
- 3rd May 2024.Reading time 15 minutes.
- ‘one might hear a pin drop’ (UK, 1739): the silence and sense of expectation are intense—‘one can hear a pin drop’ (UK, 1737): one has a keen sense of hearing
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- ‘DEIRDRE SPECTACLES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 2nd May 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.
- UK, 1981—a pair of spectacles with an oversized frame of a style that was fashionable in the 1980s—refers to the spectacles worn by Deirdre Barlow, a fictional character in the soap opera Coronation Street
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2024-4
- ‘DILLBRAIN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 30th Apr 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- Australia, 1943—a foolish or silly person—from the synonymous noun ‘dill’ (1933), itself apparently a back-formation from the adjective ‘dilly’, meaning ‘foolish’, ‘silly’
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- ‘VIENNOISERIE’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 29th Apr 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- France—1883: Viennese-style baked goods—1887: a bakery that makes and sells this type of baked goods—those baked goods were introduced into France in 1839 by the Austrian entrepreneur August Zang
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- ‘PROPHET OF DOOM’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 27th Apr 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- UK, 1809—a person who predicts disaster, a doomsayer—also: a person who is (especially unduly) pessimistic about the future
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- ‘TURISTA’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 26th Apr 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- USA, 1956—diarrhoea suffered by travellers, originally and especially in Mexico—borrowed from Spanish ‘turista’, translating as ‘tourist’
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- ‘SLANGUIST’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 24th Apr 2024.Reading time 15 minutes.
- USA, 1871: a person who frequently uses or coins slang words and phrases—USA, 1926: a person who studies the use and historical development of slang—blend of the nouns ‘slang’ and ‘linguist’
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- ‘BAEDEKER RAID’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 22nd Apr 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.
- one of the German air raids in 1942 on places of cultural and historical importance in Britain—from ‘Baedeker’: any of a series of guidebooks to foreign countries, issued by the German publisher Karl Baedeker (1801-1859) and his successors
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- ‘COMMON-OR-GARDEN’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 21st Apr 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
- 16th century: a plant of the most familiar or frequently occurring kind, especially one that is cultivated—hence, figuratively, 19th century: something ordinary or usual for its type
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- ‘TO MAKE A PIG’S EAR OF SOMETHING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 19th Apr 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- UK—the noun ‘pig’s ear’ is colloquially used to designate a mess, a botched job—probably a euphemism for ‘pig’s arse’
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- ‘PIG IN THE MIDDLE’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 17th Apr 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
- UK—a ball game for three players, in which the middle player tries to intercept the ball as it passes between the other two—hence: a person, party, etc., caught between others in a conflict, dispute, etc.
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- ‘TO HITCH ONE’S WAGON TO A STAR’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 14th Apr 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.
- USA, 1862—coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson: to set oneself high aspirations—later also: to advance one’s ambitions by associating oneself with somebody more successful or powerful
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- NOTES ON ‘PING-PONG’ (PARLIAMENTARY TERM)
- 13th Apr 2024.Reading time 14 minutes.
- UK Parliament, 1902: rapid verbal exchanges between two parties—Queensland Parliament, 1902: the to and fro of amendments to bills between two Houses of Parliament
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- ‘BIBLIOTHERAPY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 12th Apr 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- the use of books for therapeutic purposes, especially in the treatment of mental health conditions—USA, 1914—coined by essayist and Unitarian minister Samuel McChord Crothers (1857-1927)
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- ‘USHERETTE’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 11th Apr 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
- USA, 1906: a female attendant who shows people to their seats in a church—USA, 1907: a female usher at Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera House—from ‘usher’ and the suffix ‘-ette’, forming nouns denoting women or girls linked with, or carrying out a role indicated by, the first element
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- ‘MUNITIONETTE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 10th Apr 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
- UK, 1915—a female worker in a munitions factory, especially during the First World War (1914-18)—from ‘munition’ and the suffix ‘-ette’, denoting women or girls linked with, or carrying out a role indicated by, the first element
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- ‘SPLENDID ISOLATION’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 9th Apr 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
- UK, 1860: used specifically of the political and commercial uniqueness or isolation of the United Kingdom—but used earlier, more generally, in reference to being cut off from one’s kind or from the rest of the world
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- ‘CRÈME DE LA CRÈME’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 8th Apr 2024.Reading time 15 minutes.
- UK, 1839—France, 1843—the best people in a group, or the best type of a particular thing—a borrowing from French ‘crème de la crème’, literally ‘cream of the cream’
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- ‘YIMBY’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 6th Apr 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
- USA, 1986—consent by nearby residents to the siting of something despite the fact that they perceive it as unpleasant or hazardous—acronym from ‘yes in my back yard’, after ‘NIMBY’
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- ‘GENTRIFICATION’: TWO MEANINGS—AND TWO ORIGINS
- 5th Apr 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- Australia, 1865 (nonce-use): the process of turning into a person of high social rank—UK, 1964 (coined by sociologist Ruth Glass): the process whereby middle-class people take up residence in a traditionally working-class area of a city
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- ‘BATHTUB RING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 4th Apr 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- also ‘ring (a)round the bath(tub)’—USA, 1914—a dirty water-level mark left on the inside of a bathtub after it has been drained, caused by a combination of hard water and a build-up of soap scum, oils from bath products, etc.
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- BRITISH USES OF ‘A BOX OF FROGS’
- 3rd Apr 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.
- has been colloquially used to express a great variety of notions, in particular ugliness and madness, but also unpleasantness, unpredictableness, agitation, disturbance, etc.
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- ‘AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 2nd Apr 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- a person embodying the civilised qualities supposedly characteristic of both an officer in the armed forces and a gentleman—UK, 1749, in the Articles of War
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- ‘CHATTERING CLASSES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 1st Apr 2024.Reading time 18 minutes.
- the educated sections of society, considered as enjoying discussion of political, social and cultural issues—coined in 1980 by British journalist Frank Johnson, but had occasionally occurred from 1840 onwards
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2024-3
- ‘TALKAHOLIC’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 31st Mar 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- USA, 1954: a person who talks excessively—USA, 1964: a person who is addicted to talk radio—from ‘talk’ and the suffix ‘-aholic’, forming nouns designating a person who is addicted to the thing, activity, etc., expressed by the first element
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- MORE BRITISH USES OF ‘MARMITE’
- 30th Mar 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- ‘to spread [something or someone] like Marmite’ (1964)—‘like Marmite, a little goes a long way’ (1970)—Marmite is a savoury paste made from concentrated yeast and vegetable extract, used as a spread and for enriching soups and stews
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- A BRITISH USE OF ‘MARMITE’ (DIVISIVENESS)
- 29th Mar 2024.Reading time 15 minutes.
- 1973—someone or something that polarises opinions by provoking either strongly positive or strongly negative reactions, rather than indifference—proprietary name for a savoury paste made from yeast and vegetable extract, which is either loved or hated
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- ‘BRING YOUR OWN BOOZE’ | ‘BRING YOUR OWN BOTTLE’
- 28th Mar 2024.Reading time 29 minutes.
- indicates that a place or event is one to which guests may or should bring their own alcoholic drink—UK, 1858—USA, 1910—in early U.S. use, often referred to the prohibition of alcohol
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- ‘BRING-YOUR-OWN-BOTTLE PARTY’ | ‘BRING-A-BOTTLE PARTY’
- 27th Mar 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
- a party to which attendees are encouraged to bring their own drinks, especially alcohol—‘bring-your-own-bottle party’: USA, 1923, in the context of Prohibition—‘bring-a-bottle party’: UK, 1928
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- ‘ON ONE’S JACK JONES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 25th Mar 2024.Reading time 19 minutes.
- ‘on one’s own’—UK, 1926—‘Jack Jones’ is rhyming slang for ‘alone’, or for ‘own’ in ‘on one’s own’
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- ‘NO WUCKING FURRIES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 24th Mar 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.
- Australia, 1986—used as an assurance that all is fine, or to express one’s agreement or acquiescence—euphemistic alteration, with switching of the initial consonants, of ‘no fucking worries’
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- ‘AMBULANCE-CHASER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 23rd Mar 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
- New York City, 1896—a lawyer who seeks accident victims as clients and encourages them to sue for damages—refers to lawyers, or their agents, following ambulances taking accident victims to hospital, in order to gain access to those victims
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- ‘TO PUT ONE’S SKATES ON’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 22nd Mar 2024.Reading time 16 minutes.
- to hurry up (1849 in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield); the image is of a skater gliding rapidly over an ice surface—also, in early use (USA, 1886): to get drunk; the rolling gait of a drunk person is likened to the swaying motion of an ice skater
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- ‘TO BE ECONOMICAL WITH THE TRUTH’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 21st Mar 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
- Ireland, 1832—particularly associated with Lord Robert Armstrong and the ‘Spycatcher’ trial (1986)—‘economy of truth’ was used in 1796 by Edmund Burke
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- ‘TO BE ECONOMICAL WITH THE ACTUALITÉ’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 20th Mar 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- UK, 1992—coined by Alan Clark during the Matrix Churchill trial—variant of ‘to be economical with the truth’, meaning: to deceive people by deliberately not telling them the whole truth about something
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- ‘TO MEET ONE’S WATERLOO’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 19th Mar 2024.Reading time 14 minutes.
- to be utterly defeated—alludes to the defeat of Napoléon I at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815—UK, 1832, as ‘to meet with a Waterloo’—USA, 1838, as ‘to meet one’s Waterloo’
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- ‘ETERNAL TRIANGLE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 18th Mar 2024.Reading time 14 minutes.
- UK, 1894—a love-relationship in which one member of a married couple is involved with a third party—loan translation from French ‘triangle éternel’, coined by Alexandre Dumas fils in L’Homme-Femme (1872), a pamphlet about a wronged husband’s right to take the life of his adulterous wife
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- ‘TALISWOMAN’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 16th Mar 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
- UK, 1856—a talisman associated with a woman—a woman likened to a talisman, especially a female sports player regarded as the leading representative of her team—alteration of ‘talisman’ with substitution of ‘woman’ for the element ‘-man’
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- ‘CAULIFLOWER EAR’ | ‘OREILLE EN CHOU-FLEUR’
- 15th Mar 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- ‘cauliflower ear’ (USA, 1887)—French calque ‘oreille en chou-fleur’ (1913)—an ear permanently deformed as a result of injuries from repeated blows, as in boxing
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- ‘TO PLAY A BLINDER’: MEANING—AND ORIGIN?
- 14th Mar 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- to perform outstandingly well—UK, 1902, originally in football: to play an excellent game—the image may be of a footballer whose speed and skill overpower opponents
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- ‘PADRE’S HOUR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 13th Mar 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
- UK, 1942—a weekly hour of religious instruction provided by chaplains to British-Army units—‘padre’ (literally ‘father’) is colloquially used to designate and address a male chaplain in the armed forces
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- ‘A BLIND BIT OF ——’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 12th Mar 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- UK, 1922—used in negative constructions with a following noun to mean ‘a single ——’, ‘any ——’; the nouns most commonly used in those constructions are ‘notice’ and ‘difference’
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- ‘A BLESSING IN DISGUISE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 10th Mar 2024.Reading time 5 minutes.
- an apparent misfortune that works to the eventual good of the recipient—first half of the 18th century (from 1713 onwards) in the plural form ‘blessings in disguise’
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- ‘THE SECOND-OLDEST PROFESSION (IN THE WORLD)’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 9th Mar 2024.Reading time 17 minutes.
- a profession which has long been established or which is regarded as having similarities with prostitution—also sometimes used jocularly—alludes to ‘the oldest profession in the world’ (i.e., prostitution)
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- ‘THE OLDEST PROFESSION IN THE WORLD’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 8th Mar 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.
- prostitution—1889 as ‘the most ancient profession in the world’ in On the City Wall, by Rudyard Kipling—was used earlier, with positive connotations, of various professions, especially agriculture
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- ‘IN ONE’S BIRTHDAY SUIT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 7th Mar 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- in a state of nudity—1732 as ‘in one’s birthday clothes’—refers to the naked condition in which a person is born—here, ‘birthday’ means ‘the day on which a person was born’
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- ‘MONA LISA SMILE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 6th Mar 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- USA, 1888—an enigmatic, mysterious smile, reminiscent of that represented in the Mona Lisa, a portrait of Monna Lisa del Giocondo, painted by Leonardo da Vinci
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- ‘TO BE SKATING ON THIN ICE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 5th Mar 2024.Reading time 15 minutes.
- to court danger by behaving in an obviously risky manner that cannot be sustained for long—1841 in an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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- ‘ZIPPER PROBLEM’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 3rd Mar 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- a man’s habit of sexual promiscuity or infidelity—refers to the zipper on the flies of a pair of trousers—USA, 1982, originally used of Members of Congress in Washington, D.C., and recorded by gossip columnist Diana McLellan
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- NOTES ON THE PHRASE ‘TO BE MORE POPULAR THAN JESUS’
- 1st Mar 2024.Reading time 14 minutes.
- notoriously used of the Beatles by John Lennon in an interview published in the Evening Standard (London, England) of 4 March 1966—but had been used earlier, for example in 1927 of Charlie Chaplin
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2024-02
- ‘CACHE-SEXE’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 29th Feb 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- 1923: a small garment worn to cover the genitals—hence (1926): anything intended to conceal something regarded as shameful or indecent—from French ‘cache-sexe’, from ‘cacher’ (to hide) and ‘sexe’ (sex, genitals)
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- ‘BACKSTABBING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 27th Feb 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- UK, 1803, as an adjective—UK, 1842, as a noun—in reference to the action or practice of attacking, or acting against, someone in a treacherous or underhand manner
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- ‘FRONTSTABBING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 25th Feb 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
- Ireland, 1914—the action or practice of attacking, or acting against, someone in a candid or open manner, as opposed to deceptively or duplicitously—coined after ‘backstabbing’ (i.e., the action or practice of attacking, or acting against, someone in a treacherous or underhand manner)
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- ‘STALKERAZZO’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 23rd Feb 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- USA, 1995—a freelance videographer or photographer, characterised as being extremely aggressive in pursuing celebrities to video or photograph them—a blend of the nouns ‘stalker’ and ‘paparazzo’
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- ADDITIONAL NOTES ON ‘HOBSON’S CHOICE’
- 22nd Feb 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- an early account of a forced choice from a number of horses, associated with William Hobson (died 1581), a London haberdasher—itself adapted from earlier accounts, in which the main protagonist remained unnamed
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- ‘SPIDER SENSE’: TWO DIFFERENT MEANINGS—AND TWO DIFFERENT ORIGINS
- 21st Feb 2024.Reading time 15 minutes.
- UK, 1914: an apparent ability to sense or intuit the presence of nearby spiders—USA, 1963, in reference to Spider-Man: a supernatural ability or power to perceive things beyond the normal range of human senses
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- ‘CHUMOCRACY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 19th Feb 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
- chiefly UK politics—a culture characterised by influential networks of close friends—from ‘chum’ (a close friend) and ‘-ocracy’ (forming nouns designating forms of government or groups who exercise political or social power)
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- ‘TO FRIGHTEN SEVEN BELLS OUT OF SOMEBODY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 18th Feb 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
- New Zealand (1890) & Australia (1891)—to terrify somebody—probably modelled on the earlier phrase ‘to knock seven bells out of somebody’ (‘to give a severe beating to somebody’)
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- ‘TO KNOCK SEVEN BELLS OUT OF SOMEBODY’: MEANING—AND ORIGIN?
- 17th Feb 2024.Reading time 16 minutes.
- USA, 1826, as ‘to flog somebody like seven bells’—to give a severe beating to somebody—‘seven’ is perhaps simply an arbitrary intensifier—cf. phrases such as ‘like seven bells half-struck’ (‘with as much speed as possible’) and ‘to blow seven bells’ (‘to blow a violent gale’)
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- ‘BLACK-EYE FRIDAY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 16th Feb 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.
- UK & Ireland, 2005—the last Friday before Christmas—refers to the high number of fights caused by revellers on that day
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2024-01
- ‘OLD SPANISH CUSTOM’: MEANING—AND ORIGIN?
- 16th Jan 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
- a questionable or unorthodox practice that has long been established—1929 in U.S. film ‘Bulldog Drummond’—perhaps coined by British author Herman Cyril McNeile
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- ‘TO EMBIGGEN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 11th Jan 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
- to make bigger or greater, to enlarge—UK, 1884, as a translation of ancient Greek ‘µe?a???e??’ as used in the Acts of the Apostles, 5:13—recoined in 1996 in the U.S. animated television series The Simpsons
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- ‘TO SIGN ON THE DOTTED LINE’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 9th Jan 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
- (literally) to formally agree to something by signing an official document—(figuratively) to make a firm commitment about something—USA, 1900s, in reference to life-insurance contracts
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- ‘SNEAKY-BEAKY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 5th Jan 2024.Reading time 15 minutes.
- an intelligence operative, also an intelligence operation—UK, 1966—from ‘sneaky’ (furtive, deceitful) and ‘beaky’ (referring to an overly inquisitive person, with allusion to a prominent nose)
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- ‘POWER BEHIND THE THRONE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 1st Jan 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
- a person who covertly exercises power by personal influence over a ruler or government without having any formal authority—ascribed to William Pitt the Elder by William Godwin in 1783
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2023-12
- ‘MORE POWER TO YOUR ELBOW’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 31st Dec 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
- Ireland, 1826—an expression of approval or support for a person who is involved in an activity that the speaker regards as praiseworthy
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- ‘MORE PEOPLE KNOW TOM FOOL THAN TOM FOOL KNOWS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 29th Dec 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
- used in a situation in which someone is recognised by a person or persons whom he or she does not know or recognise—1722 in Colonel Jack, by Daniel Defoe—1656 with ‘the clown’ instead of ‘Tom Fool’
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- ‘GROCKLE’: MEANING, ORIGIN (?) AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
- 25th Dec 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
- Southwest England—a tourist—first used in The System (1964), a British film written by Peter Draper and directed by Michael Winner—of uncertain origin
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- ‘AN IRON HAND IN A VELVET GLOVE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 20th Dec 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
- 1815—inner ruthlessness and determination disguised in outward gentleness and courtesy—loan translation from French ‘une main de fer dans un gant de velours’ (1814)
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- ‘TO IRON OUT THE WRINKLES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 18th Dec 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
- USA, second half of the 19th century—to eliminate minor difficulties—the image is of removing the creases from a piece of fabric, using a hot iron
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- ‘TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 17th Dec 2023.Reading time 16 minutes.
- UK, 1748, as ‘to add insult to injuries’—to act in a way that makes matters worse in a bad situation or when somebody has already been hurt or upset
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- ‘BEATLEMANIA’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
- 15th Dec 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
- UK, 1963—with reference to the Beatles, a pop and rock group from Liverpool: the frenzied behaviour of the Beatles’ admirers; addiction to the Beatles and their characteristics
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- ‘PINKY SWEAR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 12th Dec 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
- USA—also ‘pinky promise’—a binding promise made while linking one’s little finger with that of another person—‘pinky’ designates the little finger
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2023-11
‘A TROUT IN THE MILK’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
5th Dec 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
highly convincing circumstantial evidence—USA, 1862—ascribed to Henry David Thoreau—refers to the practice of surreptitiously diluting milk with stream-water
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‘WHAT HAS THAT GOT TO DO WITH THE PRICE OF TEA IN CHINA?’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
2nd Dec 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
USA, 1930—a rhetorical question calling attention to a non-sequitur or irrelevant statement or suggestion made by another person—one of the phrases built on the pattern ‘what has that got to do with the price of ——?’
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‘UNDER THE RADAR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
1st Dec 2023.Reading time 16 minutes.
USA, 1969—the phrases ‘off the radar’, ‘under the radar’ and ‘below the radar’ are used of something or someone that cannot be detected—the reference is to an aircraft flying too low to be detected by a radar
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‘A BLOT ON THE LANDSCAPE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
28th Nov 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
UK, 1813, as ‘to blot the landscape’, meaning, of an ugly feature, to spoil the appearance of a place—also used figuratively of anything unsightly or unappealing that spoils an otherwise pleasant scene
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‘TO BLOT ONE’S COPYBOOK’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
27th Nov 2023.Reading time 14 minutes.
UK, 1879, as ‘a blot on one’s copybook’: a fault, misdemeanour or gaffe which blemishes one’s reputation—‘copybook’: an exercise book with samples of scripts, in which children practised their writing
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‘WHAT HAS THAT GOT TO DO WITH THE PRICE OF ——?’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
25th Nov 2023.Reading time 20 minutes.
USA, 1832—a rhetorical question calling attention to a non-sequitur or irrelevant statement or suggestion made by another person—the noun following ‘the price of’ is irrelevant to the context in which it is used
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‘ALL THE TEA IN CHINA’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
23rd Nov 2023.Reading time 16 minutes.
Ireland, 1891—used in negative contexts to denote rejection, especially in ‘not for all the tea in China’, meaning ‘not in any circumstances’—refers to China as a major producer of tea, and to tea as a commodity of great value
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‘KNACKER’S YARD’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
22nd Nov 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
UK—1824: a slaughterhouse where old or injured horses are slaughtered and their bodies processed—1832: a notional place where ends up someone or something that is no longer useful or successful
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‘LIKE A BANDICOOT ON A BURNT RIDGE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
20th Nov 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
1894—in Australian English, the noun ‘bandicoot’, which designates an insectivorous marsupial native to Australia, has been used in numerous similes denoting deprivation or desolation
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‘THE BUCK STOPS HERE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
19th Nov 2023.Reading time 22 minutes.
USA, 1929—the final responsibility lies with a particular person—from ‘to pass the buck’—‘buck’: in the game of poker, any object in the jackpot to remind the winner of some obligation when his or her turn comes to deal
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‘CONTROL FREAK’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
17th Nov 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
USA, 1967—a person with a need to exercise tight control over their surroundings, behaviour or appearance—‘freak’ is used as the second element in compounds designating a person who is obsessed with the activity, interest or thing denoted by the first element
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‘SIT-DOWN MONEY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
16th Nov 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.
Australia, 1976—used by Aborigines to depreciatively designate unemployment or welfare benefits—‘sit-down’ means: performed or obtained while sitting down, with the implication that no or few efforts are required
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‘TO DRAW THE CRABS’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
14th Nov 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
Australia, 1932: to attract unwelcome attention or criticism—originally, WWI slang: to draw artillery fire from the enemy, in reference to crab shells, used with punning allusion to artillery shells
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‘TO SELL THE FAMILY SILVER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
13th Nov 2023.Reading time 16 minutes.
UK, 1979—to sell a valuable resource or asset for immediate advantage—in particular: to dispose of a nation’s assets for financial gain—‘family silver’: something considered to be of great value, materially or otherwise
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‘CHEWY ON YOUR BOOT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
12th Nov 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
Australia—in Australian Rules football: used as a call to discourage or distract a player in a rival team attempting to kick for goal—more widely: used to deride a person or organisation deemed to be performing poorly, or to wish someone bad luck—‘chewy’ = ‘chewing gum’
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‘TO PISS IN SOMEONE’S POCKET’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
11th Nov 2023.Reading time 20 minutes.
Australia, 1953—to flatter someone or to (seek to) ingratiate oneself with someone, to curry favour with someone—cf. 19th-century British phrase ‘to piss down someone’s back’ (to flatter someone)
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‘THE HUNGRY MILE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
10th Nov 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
Australia, 1925—a section of Sussex Street, on the Sydney waterfront, along which, in the 1920s and 1930s, unemployed wharf-labourers trudged, waiting to be handpicked for the few available jobs
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‘(AS) SCARCE AS HEN’S TEETH’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
9th Nov 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
USA, 1831—very rare—since the late 17th century, the expression ‘hen’s teeth’ has been used as a type of something which is extremely rare, unattainable or non-existent
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‘ONE MAN’S MEDE IS ANOTHER MAN’S PERSIAN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
7th Nov 2023.Reading time 13 minutes.
humorous variant of ‘one man’s meat is another man’s poison’—USA, 1929—refers to the phrase ‘the law of the Medes and Persians’, denoting something which cannot be altered
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‘JACK THE PAINTER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
6th Nov 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
Australia, 1846—the name of a coarse green tea drunk in the bush—this name referred to the colour of this tea and to its awful taste
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‘ONE MAN’S MEAD IS ANOTHER MAN’S POISON’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
5th Nov 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
humorous variant of ‘one man’s meat is another man’s poison’—USA, 1938—used in particular to play on the surnames ‘Mead’ and ‘Meade’
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‘POMMY-BASHING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
4th Nov 2023.Reading time 19 minutes.
Australia & New Zealand, early 1970s—‘Pommy’: a British immigrant to Australia or New Zealand; a British (especially an English) person—‘-bashing’: the activity of abusing or attacking the people mentioned just because they belong to a particular group or community
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‘POMMY SHOP STEWARD’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
3rd Nov 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
Australia, 1974—a radical British shop steward in an Australian trade union—‘Pommy’ designates a British immigrant to Australia, also a British (especially an English) person
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‘WHINGEING POMMY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
2nd Nov 2023.Reading time 24 minutes.
Australia, 1962—an immigrant from Britain who complains about Australia—‘Pommy’: apparently a shortening of ‘pomegranate’, used to designate an immigrant from Britain
2023-10
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‘LIKE A ROBBER’S DOG’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
31st Oct 2023.Reading time 18 minutes.
Australia & UK—denotes physical ugliness; also used of temporary states such as tiredness, hangover, anger, etc. (Australia, 1946)—also denotes rapidity (Australia, 1947)
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‘LIKE A BEATEN FAVOURITE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
30th Oct 2023.Reading time 4 minutes.
Australia, 1982—denotes physical ugliness
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‘A HATFUL OF ARSEHOLES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
29th Oct 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
Australia, 1957, as ‘a hatful of bronzas’—used in similes expressing notions such as ugliness and silliness
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‘SILLY AS A WHEEL’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
28th Oct 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
Australia, 1931—extremely silly—the underlying notion is probably that anything is silly that does all the hard work
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‘TO DOT THE I’S AND CROSS THE T’S’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
27th Oct 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
USA, 1820—with reference to cursive writing: to pay attention to every detail, especially when finishing off a task or undertaking; to be accurate and precise
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‘TO SHOOT THE BREEZE’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
26th Oct 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
USA, 1909—to converse idly, to gossip; to talk nonsense or to exaggerate the truth
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‘DOLE BLUDGER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
24th Oct 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
Australia & New Zealand—a person who exploits the system of unemployment benefits by avoiding gainful employment—first used in 1974 by the Australian Minister for Labor and Immigration Clyde Cameron in reference to young people who migrated to the Gold Coast
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‘TO THROW A WOBBLY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
23rd Oct 2023.Reading time 21 minutes.
also ‘to throw a wobbler’—New Zealand, 1964—to lose one’s self-control in a fit of nerves, temper, panic, etc.—‘wobbly’, also ‘wobbler’, denotes a fit of temper or panic
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‘A WHIM-WHAM FOR A GOOSE’S BRIDLE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
20th Oct 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
also ‘a wigwam for a goose’s bridle’—UK, 1836—denotes something absurd or preposterous; now typically used evasively in response to an unwanted or annoying question
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AN AUSTRALIAN USE OF ‘BOTTOM OF THE HARBOUR’
18th Oct 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
1980—a tax evasion scheme in which a company and its records vanish completely (figuratively to the bottom of the harbour, originally Sydney Harbour) with an unpaid tax bill
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‘CHECKOUT CHICK’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
17th Oct 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
colloquial—USA, 1949—a female employee who works at a supermarket checkout counter—is also occasionally applied to males
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‘LITTLE AUSSIE BATTLER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
15th Oct 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
a person who struggles for a livelihood, and who displays great determination in so doing—Australia, 1974—originally applied to the Australian television host, radio presenter and singer Ernie Sigley
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‘OFF ONE’S PANNIKIN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
14th Oct 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
Australia, 1879—the noun ‘pannikin’ has been used figuratively in the sense of ‘the head’ in the dated slang phrase ‘off one’s pannikin’, meaning: ‘off one’s head’, ‘out of one’s wits’, ‘crazy’
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‘GLITTERATI’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
13th Oct 2023.Reading time 14 minutes.
the celebrities of the fashionable literary and show-business world—USA, 1944—blend of ‘glitter’ ((to make) a brilliant appearance or display) and of ‘literati’ (intellectuals)
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‘TO COME DOWN ON SOMEONE LIKE A TON OF BRICKS’: MEANINGS AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
11th Oct 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
to attack or punish someone with great vigour; to reprimand someone severely—USA, 1862; New Zealand, 1863
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‘TO HAVE A SHOT IN THE LOCKER’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
10th Oct 2023.Reading time 13 minutes.
to have something in reserve but ready for use; to have a chance or opportunity remaining—nautical, USA, 1789—‘shot’: a projectile designed for discharge from a firearm—‘locker’: the compartment for keeping ammunition on a ship
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‘(AS) THICK AS A BRICK’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
9th Oct 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
very stupid—popularised by Jethro Tull’s ‘Thick as a Brick’ (1972), but already existed—in early use (19th century) applied to nouns such as ‘skull’ and ‘head’, used metonymically for ‘intelligence’
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‘UNDER THE WEATHER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
8th Oct 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
USA, 1815—not completely well; slightly ill or depressed—the image is of a ship caught in a storm (the noun ‘weather’ has long been used to denote a storm)
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2023-09
‘HIP-POCKET NERVE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
7th Oct 2023.Reading time 5 minutes.
Australia, 1946—an imaginary nerve that reacts whenever demands are made on one’s money, especially in the context of government proposals to increase taxes—first used, if not coined, by Ben Chifley, Prime Minister of Australia (1945-49)
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‘TO KICK THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD’: MEANING, ORIGIN (?), AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
6th Oct 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
to delay dealing with a difficult situation—USA, 1983—may refer to toying idly with a discarded can while walking down a road or street
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‘TO PUT ONE’S CUE IN THE RACK’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
2nd Oct 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
USA, late 19th century—to give up, to retire, also, occasionally, to die—from the image of a billiard-player putting the cue back in the rack when the game is over
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‘WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS, BUSH WEEK?’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
1st Oct 2023.Reading time 22 minutes.
Australia, 1938—an indignant response to someone who is taking the speaker for a fool—alludes to the condescending way in which townspeople treated people from the country during bush week (i.e., a festival held in a town or city, celebrating bush produce, activities, etc.)
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‘TO KICK THE TYRES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
29th Sep 2023.Reading time 13 minutes.
USA, early 1960s—to test, check or research the condition or quality of a product, service, etc., before purchase or use—alludes to the practice consisting for a prospective buyer in kicking the tyres of a motorcar when inspecting it
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MEANING AND ORIGIN OF THE POLITICAL TERM ‘DOG WHISTLE’
27th Sep 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
the targeting of a potentially controversial message to specific voters while avoiding offending those voters with whom the message will not be popular—Canada, 1995—the image is that, like the sound made by a dog whistle, the message is only fully audible to those at whom it is directly aimed
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‘TO KICK INTO THE LONG GRASS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
26th Sep 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
UK politics, 1962—to delay dealing with something, in the hope that it will be forgotten—from the image of sending a ball into the tall grass off the playing field during a sporting event, which interrupts this event
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‘BRIDEZILLA’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
25th Sep 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
USA, 1995—a woman thought to have become intolerably obsessive or overbearing in planning the details of her wedding—from ‘Godzilla, the suffix ‘-zilla’ is used to form humorous nouns which depict a person or thing as a particularly fearsome, relentless or overbearing example of its kind
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‘POPEMOBILE’: ORIGINAL MEANING
24th Sep 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
USA, 1969—the 1964 Lincoln Continental specially built and equipped for Pope Paul VI’s 1965 visit to the United States
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‘WHEN THE BAND BEGINS TO PLAY’: MEANING (AND ORIGIN?)
23rd Sep 2023.Reading time 14 minutes.
UK, 1879—when matters become difficult or serious—of obscure origin—perhaps originally in reference to a music-hall song of that title, interpreted from 1870 onwards by Annie Adams
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‘NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
21st Sep 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
early 1930s—in an anti-climactic, disappointing way (used of something that comes to an end)—alludes to the last line of The Hollow Men (1925), by T. S. Eliot
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‘THE LUNATICS ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
20th Sep 2023.Reading time 14 minutes.
UK, 1886—those in charge of an organisation, project or initiative lack the fundamental qualities needed to fulfil their responsibilities
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‘THE GREEKS HAD A WORD FOR IT’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
19th Sep 2023.Reading time 21 minutes.
USA, 1930—used either literally or of something that should not or cannot be named or mentioned—alludes to ‘The Greeks Had a Word for It’, the title of a 1930 stage play by Zoe Akins
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‘ONE MAN’S MEAT IS ANOTHER MAN’S POISSON’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
17th Sep 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
humorous variant of ‘one man’s meat is another man’s poison’—Australia, 1872—used in particular of the opposition between flesh-eating and fish-eating in relation to the religious observance of fasting
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‘TO FACE THE MUSIC’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
16th Sep 2023.Reading time 15 minutes.
to accept or confront the inevitable, or the unpleasant consequences of one’s actions—USA, 1833—origin uncertain and disputed
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‘LIKE A DOG WITH A BONE’: MEANINGS, ORIGIN AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
15th Sep 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
UK, 1810—tenacious, persistent, obstinate—unwilling to yield, to relent or to let go—unable to set aside a preoccupation or obsession—the image is that a dog with a bone will not let go of that bone, no matter what
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‘(AS) CUNNING AS A MAORI DOG’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
14th Sep 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
very cunning—New Zealand, 1908—‘Maori dog’: a dog of Polynesian origin; also any mongrel dog associated with Maori settlements or living in a wild state
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‘PART OF THE FURNITURE’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
13th Sep 2023.Reading time 19 minutes.
USA, 1834—a member of a group, organisation, etc., who is so familiar as to be regarded as a permanent feature, and therefore often taken for granted
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‘TO BLOW A FUSE’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
11th Sep 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
literally (USA, 1889): to cause a fuse to melt—figuratively (USA, 1908): to lose one’s temper—from ‘fuse’, denoting a safety device placed in an electric circuit
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‘SHRINKFLATION’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
9th Sep 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
the practice of reducing a product’s amount or volume per unit while continuing to offer it at the same price—blend of ‘shrink’ and ‘inflation’—2014—apparently coined by Pippa Malmgren
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‘TO BLOW A GASKET’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
6th Sep 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
to lose one’s temper—USA, 1913—in an internal-combustion engine, a gasket is sealing layer between adjoining surfaces—hence ‘to blow (out) a gasket’ (USA, 1874): to have a gasket come loose due to excess pressure
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‘GAME, SET (AND) MATCH’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
4th Sep 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
literally (UK, 1876): a victory in a tennis match, secured by winning the deciding game of the last set required to win—in extended use (UK, 1906): a complete and decisive victory
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‘LOONY LEFT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
3rd Sep 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
a very radical, extreme or fanatical left-wing faction within a political party or the political spectrum—USA, 1945, as ‘loony leftists’
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‘LUNATIC FRINGE’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
1st Sep 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
USA, 1913: a minority group regarded as eccentric, extremist or fanatical, or simply stupid—but originally, USA, 1874: a woman or girl’s hairstyle in which the front is cut straight and square across the forehead
2023-08
‘IDIOT FRINGE’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
31st Aug 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
USA, 1927: a minority group regarded as eccentric, extremist or fanatical, or simply stupid—but originally, UK, 1873: a woman or girl’s hairstyle in which the front is cut straight and square across the forehead
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‘TOM THUMB’ USED IN REFERENCE TO GOLF
30th Aug 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
first used by Frieda Carter, Tennessee, 1928—in expressions such as ‘Tom Thumb golf course’, ‘Tom Thumb’ refers to a form of golf played on a small-scale course, or to a novelty putting course consisting of a variety of obstacles
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‘MUGSHOT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
29th Aug 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.
U.S. slang, 1935—a photograph of a person’s face, especially in police or other official records—from ‘mug’ (a person’s face) and ‘shot’ (a single photographic exposure)
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A FIGURATIVE USE OF ‘TIGER’
25th Aug 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
characterises a person who has an insatiable appetite for something—especially in ‘tiger for work’ (Australia, 1857) and ‘tiger for punishment’ (New Zealand, 1911)
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‘TO PUT SPORT BACK ON THE FRONT PAGES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
23rd Aug 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
Australia, 1978—used of a desirable state of political stability—alludes to a remark made by Malcolm Fraser, Leader of the Liberal Party, during the campaign for the 1975 Australian federal election
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‘JUKEBOX’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
22nd Aug 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
a coin-operated phonograph (typically in a gaudy, illuminated cabinet) having a variety of records that can be selected by push button—USA, 1939—earlier appellation: jook organ (Florida, 1937)
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‘GAIETY OF NATIONS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
21st Aug 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
enjoyment or pleasure shared by a large number of people—coined by Samuel Johnson in his posthumous homage to David Garrick published in Prefaces, biographical and critical, to the works of the English poets (London, 1779)
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‘TO MAKE THE FUR FLY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
20th Aug 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
to cause trouble or an argument—USA, 1814—based on the image of cats fighting
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‘RUMPY-PUMPY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
19th Aug 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.
sexual intercourse—Scotland, 1968—reduplication (with variation of the initial consonant and addition of the suffix ‘-y’) of the noun ‘rump’, denoting a person’s buttocks
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‘STONE THE CROWS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
11th Aug 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
exclamation of surprise, regret or disgust—New Zealand and Australia, early 20th century—one of several similar phrases, such as ‘starve the rats’, expressing those feelings
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‘MONOKINI’: MEANING, ORIGIN AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
9th Aug 2023.Reading time 13 minutes.
a woman’s topless swimsuit, consisting of the lower half of a bikini—from the prefix ‘mono-’ and ‘-kini’ in ‘bikini’, reinterpreted as containing the prefix ‘bi-’—coined in 1946 by French clothing designer Louis Réard
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‘WAHINE TOA’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
8th Aug 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.
a brave Maori female warrior; by extension, any strong or brave woman—New Zealand—in Maori, 1873—in English, 1902—from ‘wahine’ (a Maori woman or wife) and ‘toa’ (a brave Maori male warrior)
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‘(AS) FULL AS A BOURKE-STREET TRAM’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
4th Aug 2023.Reading time 4 minutes.
drunk—Australia, 1983—refers to Bourke Street, one of the main streets in the centre of Melbourne, Victoria—in Australian English, the adjective ‘full’ is used in various phrases referring to drunkenness
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‘NOT TO KNOW WHETHER IT’S TUESDAY OR BOURKE STREET’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
3rd Aug 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
Australia, 1952—used of a state of confusion or stupidity—refers to Bourke Street, in Melbourne, Victoria
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‘BLOCKBUSTER’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
2nd Aug 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
USA, 1942: a large aerial bomb that can destroy a whole block of buildings—USA, 1942: a thing of enormous impact, power or size
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2023-07
‘TO FLY OFF THE HANDLE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
31st Jul 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
to become very agitated or angry, especially without warning or adequate reason—USA, 1816—from the image of the head of an axe or other tool becoming detached from its handle
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‘COMET WINE’ | ‘COMET VINTAGE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
30th Jul 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.
a wine, or a vintage, produced in a year in which a notable comet appeared, and therefore thought to be of superior quality—UK—‘comet wine’ 1817—‘comet vintage’ 1819
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‘SLEEPING POLICEMAN’ | ‘GENDARME COUCHÉ’
27th Jul 2023.Reading time 26 minutes.
a raised band across a road, designed to make motorists reduce their speed—1961—based on the image of a policeman lying asleep in the middle of a road—in early use often with reference to Jamaica
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‘SHORT FUSE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
25th Jul 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
a tendency to lose one’s temper easily—USA, 1942—‘fuse’ refers to a device by which an explosive charge is ignited—adjective ‘short-fused’: USA, 1952
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‘CLIFFHANGER’: MEANINGS, ORIGIN AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
23rd Jul 2023.Reading time 17 minutes.
a suspenseful ending to an episode of a serial; the serial itself—USA, early 1930s—originally referred to serials which ended episodes with their protagonists literally hanging from cliffs, or in similarly dangerous situations
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‘TO SNATCH VICTORY FROM THE JAWS OF DEFEAT’ | ‘TO SNATCH DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY’
22nd Jul 2023.Reading time 14 minutes.
‘to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat’: to win a battle, contest, etc., when defeat seemed inevitable—‘to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory’: to be defeated in a battle, contest, etc., when victory seemed inevitable
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‘FLOPBUSTER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
21st Jul 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
a film which fails to achieve the commercial success that was expected—UK, 1986—from ‘flop’ (a failure) and ‘-buster’ in ‘blockbuster’ (a film which achieves great commercial success)
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‘BACK O’ BOURKE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
20th Jul 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
a remote and sparsely populated inland area of Australia—1896, in a poem by William Henry Ogilvie—refers to Bourke, the most remote town in north-western New South Wales
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‘GET-OUT-OF-JAIL-FREE CARD’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
19th Jul 2023.Reading time 13 minutes.
something that enables a person to evade punishment, adverse consequences or an undesirable situation—refers to a card in the game of Monopoly which allows a player to leave the jail square
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‘THE SCHOOL OF (THE) HARD KNOCKS’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
17th Jul 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
the experience of a life of hardship regarded as a means of instruction—USA, 1870
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‘TO WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
16th Jul 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.
to walk with arms extended, elbows and wrists bent at right angles, one arm up, one down—1962 in To Kill a Mockingbird—refers to the representation of the human body by the ancient Egyptians
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‘THE UNIVERSITY OF LIFE’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
15th Jul 2023.Reading time 15 minutes.
USA, 1854—the experience of life regarded as a means of instruction, in contrast to formal (higher) education—now often used with the implication that life experience is of greater benefit than formal education
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‘TALKING HEAD’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
14th Jul 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
USA, 1963—frequently in plural: a person on television who is shown merely speaking, as in a newscast or an interview
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‘TO DRIVE A COACH AND HORSES THROUGH SOMETHING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
13th Jul 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
1691—to expose the flaws in something such as a law, a policy, an argument or a belief—these flaws are likened to holes large enough to drive a coach and horses through them
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‘BLUE FUNK’ (AMERICAN USAGE)
11th Jul 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
a state of depression or despair—1893—a shift in meaning of the British-English expression ‘blue funk’, denoting a state of extreme nervousness or dread (the original meaning in American English)
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‘BLUE FUNK’ (BRITISH AND IRISH USAGE)
10th Jul 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
a state of extreme nervousness or dread—UK, mid-19th century—‘blue’ is an intensifier of ‘funk’, denoting a state of extreme nervousness or dread
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‘UGLY DUCKLING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
9th Jul 2023.Reading time 16 minutes.
a person or thing, initially ugly or unpromising, that changes into something beautiful or admirable—New Zealand, 1848—from Hans Christian Andersen’s story about a supposed ugly duckling that turns out to be a swan
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‘TWELVE GOOD MEN AND TRUE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
8th Jul 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
a jury in a lawcourt—17th century—but the selection of twelve good men and true to form a jury was mentioned in the 16th century
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‘BLUE FLU’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
7th Jul 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
absenteeism among police officers (and by extension other workers) who claim to be ill but are in fact absent to support union contract demands or negotiations—USA, 1967—alludes to the traditional colour of police uniforms
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‘NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
6th Jul 2023.Reading time 15 minutes.
two different people or things are totally incompatible—1901—alludes to “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” in Ballad of East and West (1892), by Rudyard Kipling
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‘MARK TWAIN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
5th Jul 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
1809—U.S. nautical, obsolete: the two-fathom mark on a sounding-line—Samuel Langhorne Clemens chose it as his pen-name in 1863, but a pilot named Isaiah Sellers had first used it as his pen-name
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‘LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
4th Jul 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
a long-awaited sign that a period of hardship or adversity is nearing an end—UK, 1862—the image is of a railway tunnel, and the phrase has been used literally
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‘KANGAROO COURT’ AND SYNONYMS: MEANINGS AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
3rd Jul 2023.Reading time 31 minutes.
also ‘mustang court’ and ‘kangaroo inquest’—USA, 1840—a mock court that disregards or parodies existing principles of law; any tribunal in which judgment is rendered arbitrarily or unfairly
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‘KANGAROO CLOSURE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
2nd Jul 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
UK, 1909—parliamentary procedure: a form of closure by which the chair or speaker selects certain amendments for discussion and excludes others—based on the image of a kangaroo leaping over obstacles
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2023-07
‘WHEELIE BIN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
30th Jun 2023.Reading time 14 minutes.
UK, 1983—a large, rectangular dustbin with a hinged lid and wheels on two of the corners—bins on wheels were introduced into the United Kingdom in 1980 on the model of what was done in the Federal Republic of Germany
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‘TO TALK TURKEY’: ORIGINAL MEANING, EARLY OCCURRENCES (AND ORIGIN?)
28th Jun 2023.Reading time 30 minutes.
USA, 1792—to say to a person the things that they want to hear—allegedly from the story of a white man and an Indian who went hunting together, and killed a turkey and a buzzard
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‘TO DRIVE THE PORCELAIN BUS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
26th Jun 2023.Reading time 14 minutes.
to vomit from drunkenness—U.S. students’ slang, 1980—likens the position of the hands of a person holding onto the sides of a toilet bowl while vomiting therein, to that of a bus driver’s hands holding the steering wheel
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‘TECHNOSAUR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
25th Jun 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.
a person who shows no proficiency in the use of information technology—USA, 1998—from ‘techno-’ in ‘technological’ and ‘technology’, and ‘-saur’ in ‘dinosaur’, i.e., a person who is unable to adapt to change
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‘MICAWBERISM’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
24th Jun 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
irresponsible or unfounded optimism—1857, apparently coined by Charles Dickens—refers to Wilkins Micawber, a character in Dickens’s novel David Copperfield (1850)
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‘FARTICHOKE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
23rd Jun 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
the Jerusalem artichoke—UK, 1968—blend of ‘fart’ and ‘artichoke’ in ‘Jerusalem artichoke’—refers to the flatulence caused by eating Jerusalem artichokes
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‘FLASH MOB’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
21st Jun 2023.Reading time 14 minutes.
USA, 2003—a group of people organised by means of the internet, mobile phones or other wireless devices, who assemble in public to perform a prearranged action together and then quickly disperse
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‘BALL AND CHAIN’ (LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE USES)
20th Jun 2023.Reading time 17 minutes.
USA 1813—a heavy metal ball secured by a chain to a person’s leg to prevent escape or as a punishment—figuratively, mid-19th century: anything seen as a heavy restraint, especially the matrimonial bonds
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‘TO HANG SOMEONE OUT TO DRY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
19th Jun 2023.Reading time 18 minutes.
to put someone in a difficult, vulnerable or compromising situation, especially by exposing them to blame—USA, 1945, sports—the image is of suspending wet washing in the open so that it can dry
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‘BOB-A-JOB’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
14th Jun 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
UK, 1944—the slogan of the Boy Scout Association’s effort to raise money for funds by doing jobs, originally at a shilling a time
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‘WORKINGTON MAN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
13th Jun 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
UK, 2019—an older, white, working-class, Brexiteer, Northern-English man—coined by thinktank Onward to designate the Conservative Party’s target voter in the 2019 general election—refers to Workington, in Cumbria
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‘SOD THIS FOR A GAME OF SOLDIERS’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
12th Jun 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
UK slang—expresses exasperation at a situation or course of action—military, 1941—what ‘game of soldiers’ refers to is unclear
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‘BUTSKELLISM’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
11th Jun 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
UK, 1954—the economic policy of Rab Butler, Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer (1951-5), regarded as largely indistinguishable from that of Hugh Gaitskell, Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer (1950-1)—blend of ‘Butler’ and ‘Gaitskell’ plus suffix ‘-ism’
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‘GARDENING LEAVE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
9th Jun 2023.Reading time 13 minutes.
British, colloquial: a period during which an employee who is about to leave a company continues to receive a salary and in return agrees not to work for anyone else—origin, British Army: a paid leave between the end of one posting and the beginning of another
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WHY THE FRENCH LANGUAGE IS INTRINSICALLY SEXIST.
4th Jun 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
In French, the concept of dependency underlies the semantic distribution of some basic lexical items: the female is strictly defined in her relation of dependency to the male, as a daughter or as a spouse.
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2023-05
‘TO DROP ONE’S AITCHES’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
11th May 2023.Reading time 24 minutes.
also ‘to drop one’s h’s’—not to pronounce the letter h at the beginning of words in which it is pronounced in standard English—1855—1847 as ‘not to sound one’s h’s’
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‘GALLIC SHRUG’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
10th May 2023.Reading time 14 minutes.
a gesture (made by a French person to deny responsibility, knowledge or agreement) consisting typically in shrugging one’s shoulders while upturning one’s hands
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THE NAPOLEONIC ORIGIN OF ‘TO WASH ONE’S DIRTY LINEN IN PUBLIC’
9th May 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
to discuss an essentially private matter, especially a dispute or scandal, in public—UK, 1819—loan translation from French ‘laver son linge sale en public’, originated by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1814
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‘POTEMKIN VILLAGE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
8th May 2023.Reading time 18 minutes.
an impressive facade or show designed to hide an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition—1843—from the sham villages said to have been built by Grigori Potemkin to deceive Catherine II
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2023-04
‘GLORY BOX’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
4th Apr 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
a box in which a young woman stores clothes and household articles in preparation for her marriage—Australia, 1902—perhaps related to the British ‘glory hole’, denoting a place for storing odds and ends
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‘HOPE CHEST’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
2nd Apr 2023.Reading time 15 minutes.
a chest or box in which a young woman collects articles towards a home of her own in the event of her marriage—USA, 1904
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2023-03
‘BOTTOM DRAWER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
31st Mar 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
a young woman’s collection of clothes and household articles, kept in preparation for her marriage—UK, 1835?—refers to the (notional?) receptacle where those clothes and household articles are supposed to be kept
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‘TO TICKLE THE DRAGON(’S TAIL)’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
29th Mar 2023.Reading time 13 minutes.
to undertake a dangerous or hazardous operation or activity—UK, 1867, as ‘to tickle the dragon’s nose’—‘to tickle the dragon’s tail’ was used of a nuclear experiment at Los Alamos during WWII
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‘SPOILS SYSTEM’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
25th Mar 2023.Reading time 14 minutes.
the practice of filling appointive public offices with friends and supporters of the ruling political party—USA, 1834—from “to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy”, used in 1832 by Senator William Marcy
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‘DEAD-CAT STRATEGY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
24th Mar 2023.Reading time 13 minutes.
the strategy consisting in deliberately making a shocking announcement in order to divert attention from a difficulty in which one is embroiled—from the image of throwing a dead cat on the table—first defined in 2013 by Boris Johnson
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‘DRAMA QUEEN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
19th Mar 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
(derogatory) a person who is prone to exaggeratedly dramatic behaviour—UK, 1978
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‘WET BLANKET’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
18th Mar 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
literally (1618): a blanket dampened with water so as to extinguish a fire—figuratively (1775): a person or thing that has a subduing or inhibiting effect
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‘TO PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
17th Mar 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
to draw an obvious inference from available evidence—early 19th century—but ‘two and two make four’, used as as a paradigm of the obvious conclusion, is first recorded in the late 17th century
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‘THAT MAKES TWO OF US’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
15th Mar 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
used conversationally to declare, often ironically, that one shares the opinion, sentiment, predicament, etc., of the previous speaker—USA, early 20th century
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‘TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
14th Mar 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.
real events and situations are often more remarkable or incredible than those made up in fiction—first occurred as ‘truth is always strange, stranger than fiction’ in Don Juan (1823), by George Gordon Byron
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‘TO SWEAR LIKE A TROOPER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
13th Mar 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
to use a lot of swearwords—first used in 1713 by Joseph Addison—alludes to the fact that troopers (i.e., soldiers of low rank in the cavalry) had a reputation for coarse language and behaviour
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TO BE CAUGHT WITH ONE’S PANTS DOWN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
11th Mar 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
to be caught off-guard; to be surprised in an embarrassing or compromising situation—USA, 1886
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‘THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
10th Mar 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
a ruse or stratagem that is still effective although it has been used for a long time—USA, 1929—seems to have originated in sports
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‘TOWN AND GOWN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
8th Mar 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
1750—the non-academic inhabitants (‘town’) of a university city and the resident members of the university (‘gown’, denoting the distinctive costume of a member of a university)
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‘TINFOIL HAT’ (USED IN RELATION TO PROTECTION)
5th Mar 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
alludes to the belief that such a hat or cap protects the wearer from mind control, surveillance or similar types of threat—USA, 1972 as ‘tinfoil-lined hat’
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‘PIPSQUEAK’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
4th Mar 2023.Reading time 14 minutes.
a person or thing that is insignificant or contemptible—1910—originally (1900): a type of small high-velocity shell, with reference to the high-pitched sound of its discharge and flight
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‘BLOUSON NOIR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
2nd Mar 2023.Reading time 20 minutes.
in French contexts: a young person, especially a young man, belonging to a youth subculture of the 1950s and 1960s—UK, 1959—from the noun ‘blouson’ (a short jacket) and the adjective ‘noir’ (black)
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2023-02
- ‘TO THROW SOMEONE UNDER THE BUS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 26th Feb 2023.Reading time 31 minutes.
- to abandon or betray someone in order to protect or advance one’s own interests—originally (British politics, 1971) ‘to push someone under a bus’—derived from ‘to go under a bus’ (British politics, 1969)
- ‘FEW AND FAR BETWEEN’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 24th Feb 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
- scarce; infrequent; difficult to find or to come by—one early use in 1668—but popularised by the Irish author Thomas Campbell in The Pleasures of Hope (1799)
- ‘IN FULL FIG’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 23rd Feb 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
- smartly dressed—from the verb ‘fig out/up’, meaning ‘to smarten up’—this verb is probably an alteration of the verb ‘feague’, of uncertain origin, meaning ‘to make (a horse) lively’
- ‘TO RAIN PITCHFORKS (WITH THEIR POINTS DOWNWARDS)’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 22nd Feb 2023.Reading time 46 minutes.
- to rain very heavily—UK, 1820—sometimes appended to the phrase ‘to rain cats and dogs’
- ‘TO RUSH IN WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 21st Feb 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
- to embark enthusiastically on a course of action that most sensible people would avoid—coined as ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ by the English poet Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism (1711)
- ‘TO BE THANKFUL FOR SMALL MERCIES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 20th Feb 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
- to be glad of minor benefits, especially in an otherwise unpleasant or troublesome situation—first recorded in The Heart of Midlothian (1818), by Walter Scott
- ‘DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 18th Feb 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
- a bias whereby people who have little ability in, or knowledge of, a particular task or subject tend to overestimate their capabilities—USA, 2008—refers to David Dunning and Justin Kruger, who described this bias in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1999
- ‘MAUVAIS COUCHEUR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 17th Feb 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
- a difficult, uncooperative or unsociable person—UK, 1829—from French ‘mauvais coucheur’, literally ‘bad bedfellow’, with original allusion to a person whom a traveller had to share a bed with when stopping over at an inn
- ‘TO RAIN CATS AND DOGS AND TO HAIL CABS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 16th Feb 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
- UK, 1856—jocular extension of ‘to rain cats and dogs’ (i.e., ‘to rain very hard’)—puns on the verb ‘hail’ (i.e., ‘to pour down like hail’) and the verb ‘hail’ (i.e., ‘to call out (a cab)’)
- ‘BLOODY CAESAR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 5th Feb 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
- a drink consisting of vodka and Clamato juice—Canada, 1969—coined after ‘Bloody Mary’—this drink is said to have been invented by bartender Walter Chell
- ‘CRUYFF TURN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 4th Feb 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.
- in soccer: a manoeuvre used by one player to evade another—UK, 1980s—refers to Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff, who first brought this manoeuvre to public attention by performing it in 1974
- ‘THE BALLOON GOES UP’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 3rd Feb 2023.Reading time 21 minutes.
- the action, excitement or trouble starts—USA, late 19th century—originally alluded to the release of a balloon to mark an event
2023-01
- ‘LEAR WITHOUT THE KING’ | ‘HENRY V WITHOUT THE KING’
- 31st Jan 2023.Reading time 17 minutes.
- an event or occasion at which the expected principal participant is not present—coined after ‘Hamlet without the Prince’—‘Lear without the King’ 1904—‘Henry V without the King’ 1964
- NOTES ON ‘WAITING FOR GODOT WITHOUT GODOT’
- 30th Jan 2023.Reading time 4 minutes.
- UK, 1999—refers to ‘Waiting for Godot’, a play by Samuel Beckett—absurd phrase, since the titular character never appears in the play—always occurs in association with the phrase ‘Hamlet without the Prince’
- NOTES ON ‘WAVE’ (I.E., CROWD MOTION)
- 29th Jan 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
- USA, 1981—said to have been invented by cheerleader ‘Krazy George’—popularised worldwide during the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, as a translation of Spanish ‘ola’—hence the British phrase ‘Mexican wave’ (1986)
- THE BIBLICAL ORIGIN OF ‘TO GO THE EXTRA MILE’
- 27th Jan 2023.Reading time 18 minutes.
- meaning: to try especially hard to achieve something or do it well—originally ‘to go the second mile’—alludes to the gospel of Matthew, 5:41: “And whosoeuer shall compell thee to goe a mile, goe with him twaine”
- ‘MEXICAN OVERDRIVE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 26th Jan 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
- the practice of coasting downhill in a motor vehicle, with the engine disengaged—USA, 1949, lorry-drivers’ slang—one of the phrases in which ‘Mexican’ denotes basic devices or processes compared unfavourably with more advanced equivalents
- ‘MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
- 25th Jan 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
- also ‘more than meets the ear’—meaning: more significance or complexity than is at first apparent—first used by John Milton as ‘more is meant than meets the ear’ in Il Penseroso (1645)
- ‘TO PUT ONE’S FEET UNDER THE TABLE’: MEANINGS AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
- 24th Jan 2023.Reading time 16 minutes.
- (literally) to sit at a table; (figuratively) to establish oneself firmly in a situation—‘to put one’s feet under the same table with somebody’: (literally) to sit at a table with somebody; (figuratively) to associate oneself with somebody
- ‘EVERY LITTLE HELPS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 23rd Jan 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
- every contribution towards a goal is valuable, regardless of how small it may be—UK, 1707—in Britain, particularly associated with Tesco, which has used this phrase as its slogan since 1993
- ‘TARDIS’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 22nd Jan 2023.Reading time 16 minutes.
- various meanings, in particular: something with a larger capacity than its outward appearance suggests—UK, 1968—the name, in TV series Doctor Who, of a time machine outwardly resembling a police telephone box, yet inwardly much larger
- ‘NOT CRICKET’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
- 21st Jan 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
- the game of cricket played in the incorrect manner or improper spirit—hence, more generally, something contrary to traditional standards of fairness or rectitude—UK, 19th century
- ‘A WALK IN THE PARK’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 19th Jan 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
- (the type of) something easy, effortless or pleasant—USA, 1937—originally denoted, in golf caddies’ slang, a nine-hole round, with some reference to the literal sense of the phrase
- ‘NOT TO PUT A FOOT WRONG’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 18th Jan 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
- to make no mistakes at all—UK, 1864—this phrase was originally used of racehorses and hunting horses
- ‘BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 17th Jan 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
- an oppressive, very confined or crowded space—UK, 1764—refers to the punishment cell at Fort William, Calcutta, in which, in 1756, the Nawab of Bengal reputedly confined British and Anglo-Indian prisoners
- ‘THE SECOND SEX’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 15th Jan 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
- women collectively, regarded as inferior to men—first occurred in ‘Don Juan’ (1821), by George Gordon Byron
- ‘BONKBUSTER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 13th Jan 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
- a type of popular novel characterised by frequent explicit descriptions of sexual encounters between the characters—from ‘bonk’, referring to sexual intercourse, and ‘blockbuster’—UK, 1988—perhaps coined by Sue Limb
- ‘SEX AND SHOPPING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 12th Jan 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
- a genre of popular fiction featuring wealthy and glamorous characters who typically engage in frequent sexual encounters and extravagant spending—USA, 1985 & 1986, in reference to British novelist Jackie Collins and U.S. novelist Judith Krantz
- ‘TO BE ALL FINGERS AND THUMBS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
- 11th Jan 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
- also ‘to be all thumbs’—to be extremely clumsy (i.e., lacking in manual dexterity)—19th century—variants of the original phrase ‘each finger is a thumb’, already proverbial in the mid-16th century
0
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#0
numerals
miscellany
- a 19th-century document on English phrases
- 19th-century nicknames for London newspapers
- Eating in the Romance languages
- French pig idioms
- Galloglossia
- The language of domination
- On biblical translations: “what is lacking” vs. “the number of fools”
- On errors in the Oxford English Dictionary
- Our lunatic contributor
- The meaning of ‘temptation’ in the Lord’s Prayer
- ‘Wuthering Heights’
A
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#A
- a/an (indefinite article)
- A1
- a bad quarter of an hour
- a baker’s dozen
- a bastard on Father’s Day
- abdabs, or habdabs (to give somebody the (screaming) abdabs, or habdabs)
- a bit of crackling
- a bit tight under the arms
- above board
- above/below the salt
- a box of birds
- Absurdistan
- a bull in a china shop
- ACAB (all coppers are bastards)
- a calf’s head is best hot
- a car crash in slow motion
- a cat may look at a king
- accident (an accident waiting to happen)
- accidents will happen in the best-regulated families
- according to Cocker
- according to Gunter
- according to Hoyle
- ache
- a Chinaman’s chance
- a chip on one’s shoulder
- a cold day in hell
- a cold day in July
- to act one’s age, and not one’s shoe size
- actress (as the actress said to the bishop – as the bishop said to the actress)
- a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down
- Adam and Eve (to believe)
- adder (deaf as an adder)
- admirable Crichton
- ado
- adorkable
- a dose of salts
- adultescent
- aerial ping-pong
- a far cry
- a fart in a spacesuit
- a fly in the ointment
- a foot in both camps
- a fox in a forest fire
- after the Lord Mayor’s Show (comes the dung-cart)
- Aga saga
- age (to act one’s age, and not one’s shoe size)
- age before beauty
- agony aunt – agony column
- a grape on the business
- a green, or hot, Christmas, or winter, makes a fat churchyard
- ailurophile
- aisle (to have people rolling in the aisles)
- a Jap on Anzac Day
- Ajax
- alar(u)ms and excursions
- Alas! my poor brother
- Albany doctor
- albatross (an albatross around one’s neck)
- Albion
- alcoholiday
- a legend in one’s (own) lifetime
- a legend in one’s (own) lunchtime
- Alexandra curl
- Alexandra limp
- a little bird told me
- alive and kicking
- alive and well (and living in ——)
- all behind, like a cow’s tail
- all chiefs and no Indians
- all-dancing, all-singing
- all dressed up with nowhere to go
- all duck or no dinner
- All-Hallown Summer
- all hat and no cattle
- all Lombard Street to a China orange
- all mouth and (no) trousers
- all my eye and Betty Martin
- all of a tiswas
- all one’s Christmases come at once
- all over bar the shouting
- all over the place like a mad woman’s [+ noun]
- all over the shop
- all right, you heard a seal bark
- all roads lead to Rome
- (all) round the houses
- all-singing, all-dancing
- all Sir Garnet
- (all) the world and his wife
- all wool and a yard wide
- a load of cobblers
- alone
- a long streak of pelican shit
- a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do
- a memory like a sieve
- (as) American as apple pie
- am I bovvered?
- a mind like a sieve
- a millstone round someone’s neck
- amour fou
- to amputate one’s mahogany
- an/a (indefinite article)
- an accident waiting to happen
- an albatross around one’s neck
- a nasty piece of work
- an axe to grind
- and not a bone in the truck
- and so to bed
- (and) the best of British luck
- an egg yesterday and a feather-duster tomorrow
- an Englishman’s home is his castle
- angel (on the side of the angels)
- Annie’s room (up in Annie’s room)
- annulaire – ring finger
- a nod is as good as a wink
- an old poacher makes the best gamekeeper
- an old Spanish custom
- another brick in the wall
- another pair of shoes
- the answer to a maidens’ prayer
- the ant’s pants
- antwacky
- any man who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad
- anyone for tennis?
- anything for a quiet life
- anything for a quiet wife
- Apache (member of a North-American people – violent street ruffian in Paris)
- ape (to lead apes in hell)
- a penny soul never came to twopence
- a piece of work (an unpleasant person)
- a poke in the eye (with a sharp stick)
- apostrofly
- to appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober
- the apple of one’s eye
- apple-pie (adjective: typically American in character)
- apple-pie order
- apple polisher/apple polishing
- apples (Australian usage)
- to apply the blowtorch to somebody’s belly
- (just) a pretty face
- aptonym – aptonymic – aptronym – aptronymic
- a racing dog’s bollocks
- a rat with a gold tooth
- are you decent? (sufficiently clothed to see visitors)
- arm (to chance one’s arm)
- armchair (attributive modifier)
- armed to the teeth
- army boots (your mother wears army boots)
- a Roland for an Oliver
- Arthur (not to know whether one is Arthur or Martha)
- a safe pair of hands
- (as) American as apple pie
- a sandwich short of a picnic
- as Australian as meat pie
- (as) bold as brass
- Asbomania
- (as) busy as a brickie in Beirut
- (as) busy as a one-armed bill-sticker in a gale
- (as) busy as a one-armed milker
- (as) busy as a one-armed paperhanger
- (as) busy as a one-armed taxi-driver with crabs
- (as) camp as a row of tents
- (as) cold as a stepmother’s breath
- (as) cold as charity
- (as) cold as Pharaoh’s heart
- (as) daft as a brush
- (as) dim as a Toc H lamp
- (as) dead as the (or a) dodo
- as demure as a whore at a christening
- (as) drunk as Chloe
- (as) dry as a Pommy’s towel
- (as) fit as a fiddle
- (as) fit as a mallee bull
- (as) flash as a rat with a gold tooth
- (as) fresh as a daisy
- (as) full as a goog
- (as) game as Ned Kelly
- a shag on a rock
- (as) happy as a clam
- (as) happy as a sandboy
- (as) happy as Larry
- (as) hard as Pharaoh’s heart
- (as) hot, or (as) strong, as mustard
- ashtray (as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike)
- (as) independent as a hog on ice
- (as) keen as mustard
- as lucky as the pox doctor’s clerk
- (as) mad as a cut snake
- (as) mad as a hatter
- (as) mad as a March hare
- (as) mad as a meat-ax(e)
- (as) mad as a snake – (as) mad as snakes
- as much use as a chocolate teapot
- as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike
- a snake in the grass
- a sniff of the barmaid’s apron
- a snowball’s chance (in hell)
- a spare tyre around the waistline
- asphalt jungle
- (as) poor as a church mouse
- a sprat to catch a mackerel
- as quick as greased lightning
- (as) right as a trivet
- (as) savage as a meat-ax(e)
- as scarce as pork chops in a Jewish boarding house
- as scarce as rocking-horse manure
- (as) sick as a parrot
- (as) snug as [animal name] (in —)
- (as) sure as God made little apples
- as the actress said to the bishop
- as the bishop said to the actress
- as the blind man said (used in association with ‘see’)
- as the crow flies
- (as) thick as thieves
- (as) thick as two short planks
- a stiff upper lip
- a storm, or a tempest, in a teacup, or in a teapot
- Astroturf
- as useful as a chocolate teapot
- as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike
- (as) warm as toast
- (as) wicked as a meat-ax(e)
- a tempest, or a storm, in a teacup, or in a teapot
- a thumbnail dipped in tar
- Atlantic
- atone
- at one fell swoop
- at sixes and sevens
- at someone’s beck and call
- to attend Lilywhite’s party
- Attila ((somewhere) to the right of Attila, or of Genghis Khan)
- auld lang syne
- Aunt (The Sydney Morning Herald)
- Auntie: The Times (London newspaper) – the BBC
- Aunt Sally
- au reservoir
- Australian (the (great) Australian adjective)
- Australian (the (great) Australian salute)
- autumn-spring
- a verandah over the toy shop
- avoirdupois
- Avon’s Swan
- away with the fairies
- a wet blanket
- a whale of a (good) time
- the awkward age – l’âge ingrat
- awkward turtle
- a word in your shell-like
- axe (an axe to grind)
B
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#B
- baby blues
- backronym
- backroom boys
- backseat driver
- back to the drawing board
- backward in coming forward
- backwards, the way Molly went to church
- bad hair day
- a bad quarter of an hour
- bag lady
- bag of mystery
- a baker’s dozen
- bald-headed (in a rush without care or caution)
- baloney
- Bamboo Curtain
- Bananaland (Queensland) – Bananalander (Queenslander)
- banana republic
- bandwagon
- banger
- bang for the buck
- to bang like a dunny door
- bang went, or goes, sixpence
- bank (to laugh/cry all the way to the bank)
- bankster
- barbecue stopper
- Barcoo (the Barcoo salute)
- Bardolatry
- barefoot(ed) and pregnant
- bark mitzvah
- barmy
- Barney’s bull
- basket case
- basket(ful) of crabs
- a bastard on Father’s Day
- bat (to have bats in one’s belfry)
- Bath (go to Bath (and get your head shaved))
- BCGs – birth-control glasses
- to be able to talk under water (or under wet cement, under wet concrete)
- to be a far cry from
- to be all fingers and thumbs
- to be all hat and no cattle
- to be all mouth and (no) trousers
- to be all thumbs
- to be all to the mustard
- beanfeast
- beano
- to beard the lion in his den
- the Beast from the East
- to beat Banagher
- to beat the bejesus out of someone
- to beat the Dutch
- beauty sleep
- beaver (eager beaver)
- to be a box of birds
- to be barking up the wrong tree
- to be born on the wrong side of the blanket
- to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth
- beck (at someone’s beck and call)
- to be decent (sufficiently clothed to see visitors)
- bedlam
- bedside manner
- bee (social gathering for a specific purpose)
- bee (to have a bee in one’s bonnet)
- been there, done that (and got the T-shirt)
- been thrown out of better places than this
- beer and skittles
- beer o’clock
- beer today (and) gone tomorrow
- the bee’s knees
- beetle-crusher
- to beggar belief
- before one can say Jack Robinson
- begging bowl (appeal for financial help)
- behind, like a cow’s tail
- behind the eight ball
- to be in a cleft stick
- bejesus
- to be left holding, or carrying, the baby
- belief (to beggar belief)
- to belittle
- to bell the cat
- below/above the salt
- belt and braces – belt and suspenders
- to be mustard
- Benjamin’s mess – Benjamin’s portion
- to be not so green as one is cabbage-looking
- to be on hand like a sore thumb
- to be on the blanket
- to be part and parcel of
- to be past one’s sell-by date
- to be saved by the bell – être sauvé par le gong
- best bib and tucker
- (and) the best of British luck
- the best thing since sliced bread
- to be the mustard
- better dead than red – better red than dead
- better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick
- Betty Martin (all my eye and Betty Martin)
- between a rock and a hard place
- between the devil and the deep blue sea
- betwixt and between
- to be unable to run a whelk stall
- beyond the pale
- bib and tucker (one’s best bib and tucker)
- Big Ben
- big girl’s blouse
- big hat—no cattle
- the big smoke
- bijou
- bikini
- Bill (black, or dark, over Bill’s, or Will’s, mother’s)
- bimbette
- bingo (the (great) god Bingo)
- bingo wings
- bird (a little bird told me)
- bird (to get the bird)
- (the) birds and (the) bees (the facts about sexual reproduction)
- bird’s-eye view
- birth-control glasses
- biscuit (to take the biscuit)
- bishop (as the bishop said to the actress – as the actress said to the bishop)
- the bitch goddess
- to bite the bullet
- black, or dark, over Bill’s, or Will’s, mother’s
- black sheep
- blackboard jungle
- blanket
- blanket finish
- blarney
- blind date
- blind eye (to turn a blind eye)
- blind Freddy
- blind man (‘said the blind man’ and variants used in association with ‘see’)
- blind scouse
- blonde moment
- blood (someone’s blood is worth bottling)
- blood, sweat, and tears
- blood wagon
- Bloody Mary (cocktail)
- Bloody Mary (unnamed precursors of the cocktail)
- Bloomsday – Bloom’s day
- blotto
- to blow a raspberry
- blowtorch (to apply the blowtorch to somebody’s belly)
- blue (out of the blue)
- blue-arsed fly (like a blue-arsed fly)
- blue Monday
- blue moon
- blues
- blue sky and hot air
- blue-sky research
- blue-sky talk
- blurb
- board (above board)
- bobby
- bob’s your uncle
- Boche
- bodkin (a person wedged between others)
- to bogart
- to boggle (the mind boggles)
- (as) bold as brass
- bollocks (the dog’s bollocks – the bollocks)
- boloney
- bomb (to go (down) like a bomb – to go down a bomb)
- Bombay duck
- Bondi (like a Bondi tram)
- bone (to make no bones about something)
- bone-box
- bone idle
- bonfire
- bonkers
- boo (wouldn’t say boo to a goose)
- boob tuber
- boodle (the whole boodle)
- the books won’t freeze
- boots under the bed
- born in a barn/a field/a sawmill/a tent
- born on the wrong side of the blanket
- born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth
- bothsideism – bothsidesism
- bottle episode – bottle show
- boudoir bandicoot
- boustrophedon
- bovver (am I bovvered?)
- bovver boy
- to bow (down) in the house of Rimmon
- bowler (hat) ((return to) civilian life)
- Box and Cox
- box and dice
- Boxing Day
- a box of birds
- box of dominoes
- box of ivories
- boy (to send a boy to do a man’s work)
- boycott
- boy meets girl
- boys in the backroom
- boys will be boys
- brass (to bring [someone or something] (right) down to the brass)
- brass (to come (right) down to the brass)
- brass monkey (extremely cold weather)
- brass tacks (to come, or to get, down to brass tacks [early instances])
- brass tacks (to come, or to get, down to brass tacks [hypothesis as to the origin])
- bread (to have one’s bread buttered for life)
- bread (it’s no bread and butter of mine)
- bread (to know on which side one’s bread is buttered)
- bread (to want one’s bread buttered on both sides)
- bread-and-butter letter
- bread and circuses
- bread and roses
- bread-artist
- breadline
- to break a butterfly on a wheel
- breakfast (call me anything, so long as you don’t call me late to breakfast)
- to break one’s duck
- to break the ice
- breastaurant
- breath (don’t hold your breath)
- brewery (couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery)
- Brexit
- brick (to drop a brick)
- bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
- to bring [someone or something] (right) down to the brass
- to bring home the bacon
- to bring [someone or something] (right) down to the brass
- Bristol (shipshape and Bristol fashion)
- Briticism
- brolly hop
- brothel-creepers
- brown bomber
- Brownie (Girl Scout or Girl Guide)
- brownie point
- brunch
- Brylcreem Boy
- Buckley’s (chance)
- budget
- budgie smugglers
- Buggin’s turn
- Bugs Bunny (eagle at the top of the Australian-American Memorial in Canberra)
- bull (like a bull in a china shop)
- bullamacow
- bulldozer
- bully
- bullycide
- bums on seats
- Bunburying
- bunny boiler
- burnsides
- to burn the midnight oil
- buroo (on the buroo)
- burton (to go for a burton)
- to bury one’s head in the sand
- bus (to miss the bus)
- bush telegraph
- (as) busy as a brickie in Beirut
- (as) busy as a one-armed bill-sticker in a gale
- (as) busy as a one-armed milker
- (as) busy as a one-armed paperhanger
- (as) busy as a one-armed taxi-driver with crabs
- the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker
- buttered (to have one’s bread buttered for life)
- buttered (to know on which side one’s bread is buttered)
- buttered (to want one’s bread buttered on both sides)
- butterfingered – butterfingers
- butterflies in one’s stomach
- butterfly
- butterfly kiss
- to button-hold – to buttonhole
- butty (sandwich – slice of bread spread with butter)
- to buy a pig in a poke
- by a long chalk
- by hook or by crook
- by the skin of one’s teeth
C
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#C
- cabbage (to be not so green as one is cabbage-looking)
- cab off the rank
- caboodle (the whole caboodle)
- cackleberry
- cahoot
- cake (to take the cake)
- cake (you can’t have your cake and eat it)
- cakeage
- calf’s head is best hot – calves’ heads are best hot
- to call a spade a spade
- calligram
- call me anything, so long as you don’t call me late to dinner
- (as) camp as, or camper than, a row of tents
- can a moose crochet?
- canary in the coal mine
- can eat an apple through a picket fence
- cannon (loose cannon)
- cannon fodder
- can talk under water (or under wet cement, under wet concrete)
- cap-a-pie
- caper (to cut a caper)
- cappuccino
- capsize
- captcha
- Capuchin
- a car crash in slow motion
- car-crash television
- carrot and stick
- to carry coals to Newcastle
- (to be left) to carry the baby
- castle (an Englishman’s home is his castle)
- castles in Spain/in the air
- to cast nasturtiums on, or at
- cat (a cat may look at a king)
- cat (to let the cat out of the bag)
- cat (like a cat on hot bricks)
- cat (like a cat on a hot tin roof)
- cat (to look like something the cat has brought in)
- cat (no room to swing a cat)
- cat (not a cat in hell’s chance)
- cat (to see which way the cat jumps)
- the Cat-and-Mouse Act
- cat mitzvah
- cat-o’-nine-tails
- cats and dogs, to rain (authentic origin)– part 1
- cats and dogs, to rain (hypothesis as to the origin) part 2
- the cat’s whiskers
- caught in the headlights
- caviar to the general
- chain-smoker
- chair à canon
- chalk (by a long chalk)
- champagne socialism – champagne socialist
- to chance one’s arm
- chance would be a fine thing
- to change horses in midstream/while crossing a stream
- chardonnay socialism – chardonnay socialist
- to charge like the Light Brigade
- charity ((as) cold as charity)
- charity dame – charity moll
- charley horse
- to chase the dragon
- Château-la-Pompe
- Château Plonk
- chateau tap-water
- chav
- cheese – fromage
- cherchez la femme
- Cheshire cat (to grin like a Cheshire cat)
- chestnut (old chestnut – marronnier)
- to chew nails and spit rust
- chicken-and-egg
- chief (too many chiefs and not enough Indians)
- Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office
- chillax
- China orange (all Lombard Street to a China orange)
- Chinaman (he must have killed a Chinaman)
- a Chinaman’s chance
- Chinese burn
- a chip on one’s shoulder
- chocolate teapot (as much use as a chocolate teapot)
- choke, chicken: more are hatching
- chook (may your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down)
- to chop and change
- Christmas grip – Christmas hold
- Christmas Truce of 1914
- church ain’t out ’till the fat lady sings, ’till the singing is over
- church mouse ((as) poor as a church mouse)
- churchyard (a green, or hot, Christmas, or winter, makes a fat churchyard)
- churchyard cough
- churchyard luck
- ciao
- cicerone
- clam ((as) happy as a clam)
- clanger (to drop a clanger)
- Clapham (the man on the Clapham omnibus)
- the Clapham Sect
- clapper (like the clappers)
- claptrap
- cleanliness is next to godliness
- the clean potato
- cleft stick
- clew
- cloak
- cloak-and-dagger
- clock
- cloud (every cloud has a silver lining)
- cloud-cuckoo-land
- clover (in clover, i.e., in ease and luxury)
- clue
- to clutch the pearls
- coals (to carry coals to Newcastle)
- cobbler (let the cobbler stick to his last)
- cobblers (rhyming slang for ‘balls’, i.e., ‘testicles’, hence ‘nonsense’)
- cock-a-hoop
- to cock a snook
- cock-and-bull story
- cocked hat, to knock into a
- Cocker, according to
- cockle (to warm the cockles of one’s heart)
- cockney
- coconut (black) (Australian Aborigine who has ‘betrayed’ his identity)
- codswallop
- Coggeshall job
- coil (this mortal coil)
- (as) cold as a stepmother’s breath
- (as) cold as charity
- (as) cold as Pharaoh’s heart
- cold call
- cold comfort
- a cold day in hell
- a cold day in July
- cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
- the cold shoulder
- cold turkey (as used of a drug addict)
- Collins (letter of thanks for hospitality)
- column (one from column A (and) one from column B)
- to come a cropper
- to come a gutser
- to come, or to get, down to brass tacks (early instances)
- to come, or to get, down to brass tacks (hypothesis as to the origin)
- to come (right) down to the brass
- to come out of the woodwork
- to come (right) down to the brass
- to come to a sticky end
- to come the old soldier over someone
- to come up with the rations
- coming? so is Christmas!
- concreteberg
- concrete jungle
- conspicuous by one’s/its absence
- Continent isolated (satirical of British insularity)
- contranym
- contredanse
- contronym
- conundrum
- cookie (that’s how, or the way, the cookie crumbles)
- cookie ((that’s when) the cookie crumbled)
- cookie pusher
- cool Britannia
- cootie
- Corbynista
- corduroy
- coronation chicken
- Corrupticut
- costa (Spanish noun used in invented place names)
- couch potato
- could eat an apple through a picket fence
- couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding
- couldn’t lead a flock of homing pigeons
- couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery
- couldn’t punch a hole in a wet Echo
- couldn’t stop a pig (in a gate)
- couldn’t work in an iron lung
- could sell refrigerators to the Eskimos
- could talk under water (or under wet cement, under wet concrete)
- to count sheep – compter les moutons
- counter (to nail to the counter)
- to cover more ground than Burke and Wills
- coward
- cowardy, cowardy custard
- crackling (women regarded collectively as objects of sexual desire)
- to crawl out of the woodwork
- crazy bone
- crébilloner – lèche-vitrine(s) – window shopping
- credit (to give credit where credit is due)
- cretin
- Crichton, admirable
- criss-cross
- croque-madame
- croque-monsieur
- cross I win (and) pile you lose
- cross my heart (and hope to die)
- to cross the floor
- crow’s nest
- crumbs from a rich man’s table
- crumpet (sexual meanings in British English)
- crumpet (not worth a crumpet)
- cruse (widow’s cruse)
- to cry/laugh all the way to the bank
- cucumber sandwiches on the lawn
- cuff (off the cuff)
- culture vulture
- cupboard love
- a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down
- the cup that cheers
- curate’s egg
- curfew
- curiosity killed the cat
- curiouser and curiouser
- to curse one’s stars
- curtain lecture
- curtain-twitcher – curtain-twitching
- cut (to have one’s work cut out)
- to cut a caper
- cut and dried
- to cut both ways
- to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face
- to cut the mustard
- to cut to the chase
- Cymru
D
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#D
- dadchelor party
- dad-dancing
- dad-joke
- Daily Fail, Daily Heil, Daily Wail (nicknames for the Daily Mail of London)
- daisy, (as) fresh as a
- daisies, to push up
- damn, not to give a tinker’s
- damnall at Blackall
- (you’re) damned if you do and damned if you don’t
- dandelion
- dandy
- dark, or black, over Bill’s, or Will’s, mother’s
- day (the day’s (only) a pup)
- daylight robbery
- dead (— is dead but won’t lie down)
- dead and never called me mother
- dead man’s shoes, to wait for
- deadline
- dementia Americana
- devil (between the devil and the deep blue sea)
- devil (the devil to pay)
- Dickless Tracy
- Dicky’s meadow, in
- dictionary (to have swallowed a dictionary)
- different ships, different long splices
- different strokes for different folks
- (as) dim as a Toc H lamp
- dine and dash
- dinner (call me anything, so long as you don’t call me late to dinner)
- dinnyhayser
- Disgusted
- to do a Dame Nellie – to do a Melba
- doesn’t buy (the) groceries
- to doff
- dog mitzvah
- dog’s letter, the
- dole, on the
- dolly (up to dolly’s wax)
- domino (figurative uses)
- domino-box
- to don
- done up like a pox doctor’s clerk
- donkey
- donkey’s years
- don’t argue (the straight-arm fend-off in rugby)
- don’t do anything I wouldn’t
- don’t hold your breath
- don’t laugh—your daughter may be inside
- don’t look a gift horse in the mouth
- don’t spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar
- dook (the hand or fist)
- doolally
- doona day
- Dorothy Dix (Australian politics)
- dose (like a dose of salts)
- Double Pay (i.e., Double Bay, in Sydney, Australia)
- down the back of the sofa
- down the river, to sell
- down the side of the sofa
- dozen, a baker’s
- dozen, thirteen to the
- drawing board, back to the
- dressed to the nines
- Dr. Greenfield (to worship under Dr. Greenfield)
- to drink the Kool-Aid
- to drive pigs (to market)
- to drop something or somebody like a hot potato
- (as) drunk as Chloe
- (as) dry as a Pommy’s towel
- duck (to break one’s duck)
- ducks on the pond
- dumb bunny
- to dumbsize
- dunny (in Australian phrases)
- duration, for the
- Dutching
- duvet day
E
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#E
- eager beaver
- early door(s) (early admission to a theatrical performance)
- early doors (near the beginning)
- earthling
- earworm
- to eat humble pie
- to eat the calf in the cow’s belly
- eavesdrop
- eggs, to teach one’s grandmother to suck
- eight ball (behind the eight ball)
- eighth wonder of the world
- elbow grease
- eligible bachelor
- ember months
- Emma Chisit
- the Emmaville Express
- enemy (How goes the enemy?)
- Energizer bunny
- English as she is spoke
- an Englishman’s home is his castle
- enemy within, the
- esprit d’escalier
- even ash
- even a stopped clock is right twice a day
- even paranoids have enemies
- every cloud has a silver lining
- every Preston Guild
- everything but the kitchen sink
- everything’s apples
- everything’s wrong in Wollongong
- Eve-teaser – Eve-teasing
- excuse-me dance
- excuse my French
- to extract the urine
- to extract the Michael
- eye (all my eye and Betty Martin)
- eyes, to pull the wool over someone’s
F
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#F
- face, to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s
- fag end
- fair-weather friend
- to fall off the turnip truck
- false dawn
- famous for fifteen minutes
- fang-farrier
- Fanny Adams – Harriet Lane
- far from the madding crowd
- a fart in a spacesuit
- fatberg
- fat churchyard (a green, or hot, Christmas, or winter, makes a fat churchyard)
- father (is your father a glazier?)
- fat lady (church ain’t out, the opera ain’t over, until the fat lady sings)
- fawn
- feather-duster (an egg yesterday and a feather-duster tomorrow)
- fed up
- fedora
- feeding time at the zoo
- to feel like a bastard on Father’s Day
- fell swoop, at one
- feminophobia – femiphobia
- femme, cherchez la
- fetus
- fiddle, (as) fit as a
- field bishop
- fifteen minutes, famous for
- fifth column
- to fight like Kilkenny cats
- to fight one’s way out of a paper bag
- figures won’t lie, but liars will figure
- Fiji uncle
- (fingernails) in mourning for the cat
- fire (to set the Thames on fire)
- first catch your hare
- (as) fit as a fiddle
- (as) fit as a mallee bull
- five o’clock shadow
- (as) flash as a rat with a gold tooth
- flat out like a lizard drinking
- flea market
- flexible friend (i.e. credit card)
- flexitarian
- flirt
- to fly a kite
- fly-by-night
- a fly in the ointment
- fly-tipping
- foaled of an acorn, a horse that was
- fog in Channel—Continent isolated
- foie gras
- food for powder
- foolometer
- for the duration
- the forbidden fruit
- forelock, to take time by the
- forlorn hope
- for show and not for blow
- forty winks
- four-leaf, or four-leaved, clover
- the fourth estate
- fox (a fox in a forest fire)
- Franglais
- Franken-
- Frankenstein food
- Frankenstein’s monster
- freedom fries
- Fremantle doctor
- French, excuse my
- French hours
- French kiss
- French leave
- (as) fresh as a daisy
- frightener (to put the frighteners on somebody)
- frog (to have a frog in one’s throat)
- Froggy
- to frog-march
- frogspawn (tapioca pudding)
- fromage – cheese
- from hero to zero
- from marbles to manslaughter
- from pillar to post
- from soup to nuts
- from the horse’s mouth, straight
- from zero to hero
- front (more front than)
- fudge factor
- (as) full as a goog
- full monty
- funny bone
- the funny things you see when you haven’t got your gun
- further back, or further behind, than Walla Walla
G
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#G
- galaxy
- gallery, to play to the
- (as) game as Ned Kelly
- garbage in, garbage out
- garbageologist – garbageology
- garbologist (refuse collector)
- garbology (refuse collection)
- garters, to have someone’s guts for
- gas and gaiters
- gauntlet, to run the
- gavroche
- gazette
- geek
- General February/Fevrier
- General January/Janvier
- General Winter
- Georgium Sidus
- get inside and pull the blinds down
- get on your bike
- to get off, or out, at Redfern, at Gateshead, etc. (to practise coitus interruptus)
- to get the bird
- gianduja
- gift horse (don’t look a gift horse in the mouth)
- giggle-house
- GIGO (garbage in, garbage out)
- gigolo
- ginger group
- gippy tummy
- girls will be girls
- to give a poke in the eye (with a — stick)
- to give a raspberry
- not to give a tinker’s damn
- to give credit where credit is due
- to give someone furiously to think
- to give the little lady a (great) big hand
- glad and sorry (hire purchase)
- Glasgow kiss
- glazier (is your father a glazier?)
- globaloney
- glutton for punishment
- to go (and) jump in(to) the lake
- to go ballistic
- gobsmacked
- Goddam (an Englishman)
- God help those who are caught helping themselves
- to go down a bomb – to go (down) like a bomb
- to go down like a lead balloon
- God slot
- godwottery
- to go for the jugular
- to go from hero to zero
- to go from zero to hero
- to go haywire
- to go home in an ambulance
- golf widow
- go to Bath (and get your head shaved)
- gone to Gowings
- good field, no hit
- to go postal
- gone on the padre’s bike
- gongoozler
- goose, wouldn’t say boo to a
- gooseberry, to play
- to go over like a lead balloon
- Gorgeous Wrecks
- gorilla dust
- gory details
- gossip
- got a feed at the Tweed
- to go to Lilywhite’s party
- to go to Specsavers
- got the arse at Bulli Pass
- government stroke
- Granny (The Sydney Morning Herald)
- granny-bashing – granny-battering
- a grape on the business
- grasshopper (a tourist, Australia)
- grass widow
- grass widower
- Grauniad
- grease monkey
- the (great) Australian adjective
- the (great) Australian salute
- green (to be not so green as one is cabbage-looking)
- a green, or hot, Christmas, or winter, makes a fat churchyard
- Greenfield (to sleep in Mother Greenfield’s (lodgings) – to worship under Dr. Greenfield)
- green fingers
- green thumb
- Greek (it’s (all) Greek to me)
- grey meanie
- grimalkin
- to grin like a Cheshire cat
- grog
- grotty
- Guardianista
- Gundy (no good to Gundy)
- Gunter (according to Gunter)
- guts (to have someone’s guts for garters)
- gutser
- guy
- gyppy tummy
H
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#H
- hail-fellow-well-met
- hair (keep your hair on)
- hair of the dog
- hairy dog
- hairy eyeball
- hairy goat
- halcyon
- half seas over
- the Ham and Egg Parade
- ham-fisted – ham-handed
- Hamlet without the Prince
- hand (the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing)
- handbag (verb)
- handbags at ten paces
- hand of glory
- happy as a bastard on Father’s Day
- (as) happy as a clam
- (as) happy as a sandboy
- happy little Vegemite
- (as) hard as Pharaoh’s heart
- hardy annual
- hare (first catch your hare)
- Harriet Lane – Fanny Adams
- hash (to make a hash of something)
- hash (to settle someone’s hash)
- hat trick
- hatter, (as) mad as a
- to have a bee in one’s bonnet
- to have a foot in both camps
- to have a frog in one’s throat
- to have a person’s name on it
- to have a tiger by the tail
- to have bats in one’s belfry
- to have both oars in the water
- to have butterflies in one’s stomach
- to have death adders in one’s pocket
- to have got sand in one’s shoes
- to have passed one’s sell-by date
- to have someone’s guts for garters
- to have someone’s name on it
- to have swallowed a dictionary
- to have two left feet, or, two left hands
- haywire, to go
- headless chicken
- heads I win (and) tails you lose
- to heap Pelion upon Ossa
- heart (to warm the cockles of one’s heart)
- heart of hearts
- heart of oak
- Heavens to Betsy
- hell (to lead apes in hell)
- hell (not a cat in hell’s chance)
- hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
- hell is paved with good intentions
- “Hell!” said the duchess
- hellzapoppin’
- helpmate
- Hesperus (like the wreck of the Hesperus)
- hewer of wood and drawer of water
- to hide the salami
- to hide the sausage
- hikikomori
- Hobson’s choice
- Hogs Norton
- hold (don’t hold your breath)
- holier-than-thou
- Hollywood ending
- home (an Englishman’s home is his castle)
- home (away) from home
- home is where the heart is
- home, James (and don’t spare the horses)
- honest Injun
- honeymoon
- hooligan
- Hooray Henry
- hope your rabbit dies
- horror stretch
- a horse that was foaled of an acorn
- horse (to change/swap horses in midstream/while crossing a stream)
- horse (don’t look a gift horse in the mouth)
- horse (straight from the horse’s mouth)
- hospital pass
- hot (like a cat on hot bricks)
- hot (like a cat on a hot tin roof)
- hot-arsed
- a hot, or green, Christmas, or winter, makes a fat churchyard
- hot dog
- hot mess
- hovercraft
- how about a game of tennis?
- how are you off for soap?
- how goes the enemy?
- how long is a piece of string?
- Hoyle, according to
- Hughie (Australian usage)
- huile de coude (i.e., elbow grease)
- human bean
- humble pie, to eat
- humongous
- hung parliament
I
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#I
- I don’t care what they call me, so long as they don’t call me late to dinner
- if it should rain — (and variants, used of ill luck)
- if it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium
- if my aunt had been a man, she would have been my uncle
- if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain
- if your aunt had been a man, she would have been your uncle
- if you want to get ahead, get a hat
- ignorance is bliss
- I hope your rabbit dies
- I’ll go to the foot of our stairs
- imbecile
- imbuggerance (absolute indifference)
- immolate
- impressionism – impressionist
- I’m talking to the butcher, not to the block
- in a cleft stick
- in a nutshell
- in Annie’s room, up
- in cahoots
- in clover (in ease and luxury)
- incunabula
- (as) independent as a hog on ice
- Indian burn
- Indian summer
- in Dicky’s meadow
- in jail at Innisfail
- in more trouble than Speed Gordon
- in mothballs
- (fingernails) in mourning for the cat
- inoperative statement
- interview without coffee
- in the grip of the grape
- in the pudding club
- in the swim
- I resemble that remark
- Irishman’s rise
- iron lung (wouldn’t work in an iron lung)
- iron maiden
- Iron Weathercock (Liz Truss)
- — is dead but won’t lie down
- I see, said the blind man
- is your father a glazier?
- itching palm
- itchy feet
- it’s (all) Greek to me
- it’s all over bar the shouting
- it’s moments like these
- it’s no bread and butter of mine
- it’s raining in London
- it takes two to tango
- it will be all right at night (theatrical phrase)
- I’ve been thrown out of better places than this
- I’ve got the time if you’ve got the inclination
- ivory-box
- ivory tower
J
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#J
- Jack Robinson (before one can say Jack Robinson)
- jam butty – jam sandwich (police patrol car)
- a Jap on Anzac Day
- Jenny Darby (policeman)
- jerry-builder
- Jesus boots
- Jesus Hilton
- Jimmy Woodser
- jingo
- job (that job’s jobbed)
- Joe Bloggs
- Joe Six-Pack
- Joe Soap
- Johnny Arab
- Johnny Canuck
- Johnny Crapaud
- Johnny Darm (policeman)
- Johnny Foreigner
- Johnny Onions
- jolly hockey stick(s)
- Joneses, to keep up with the
- jot – tittle
- to judge a book by its cover
- to jump one’s horse over the bar
- to jump the queue
- jump up whitefellow
- (just) a pretty face
K
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#K
- to kangaroo (to receive or to give kangaroo care)
- kangaroo care
- kangaroo visit
- Kathleen Mavourneen
- to keep an ear to the ground
- to keep the bastards honest
- to keep up with the Joneses
- keep your eye on the sparrow
- keep your hair on
- keep your shirt on
- Kensington Gore (artificial blood)
- kettle of fish, a pretty
- keytar
- to kick the bucket
- kidnap
- kidney, of that
- kidult
- Kilkenny cats
- Kilroy (early instances)
- Kilroy (origin?)
- Kindertransport
- King (to take the (King’s/Queen’s) shilling)
- King Charles’s head
- kingdom come
- kippers and curtains
- kiss cam
- kissing-trap
- kitchen sink, everything but the
- kite, to fly a
- knife-and-forker – knife-and-fork man
- knight in shining armour
- to knock into a cocked hat
- to knock the skin off a rice pudding
- to know one’s onions
- knuckle-butty – knuckle-sandwich
- kompromat
- Kruschen (that, or the, Kruschen feeling)
- kunlangeta
L
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#L
- Lady Blamey
- lager lout
- the land of fruits and nuts
- land of Nod
- to lark about
- last, to stick to one’s
- La Stupenda
- to laugh like a drain
- to lead apes in hell
- lead balloon
- lead in one’s pencil
- leather and prunella
- leave, French
- to leave in the lurch
- to leave no stone unturned
- the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing
- leg, to pull someone’s
- to let the cat out of the bag
- let the cobbler stick to his last
- lettuce
- to lick into shape
- lightbulb moment
- like a Bondi tram
- like a cat on hot bricks
- like a cat on a hot tin roof
- like a country dunny
- like a deer caught in the headlights
- like a dose of salts
- like a dunny in a desert
- like a headless chicken
- like a pork chop in a synagogue
- like a rabbit caught in the headlights
- like a red rag to a bull
- like a stunned mullet
- like a twisted sandshoe
- like billy-o
- like death warmed up
- like one o’clock
- like pulling teeth
- like the back (end) of a bus
- like the wreck of the Hesperus
- like watching paint dry
- Lilywhite’s party
- limerence
- limousine liberal
- Linus blanket
- the (little) man in the boat
- little man, you’ve had a busy day
- little old ladies in tennis shoes
- little rabbits have big ears
- to live on the smell of an oil rag
- liver, to wash the milk off one’s
- Liverpool gentleman (as opposed to Manchester man)
- Liverpool pantile (sea-biscuit)
- Liverpudlian
- lobster
- loco-foco
- locust
- all Lombard Street to a China orange
- Londongrad
- London to a brick
- a long streak of pelican shit
- to look like a pox doctor’s clerk
- to look like something the cat has brought in
- look (mum, or ma), no hands!
- loony bin
- loony doctor
- loose cannon
- lorem ipsum
- to lose one’s marbles
- to lose the dressing room
- love (no love lost)
- lower than a snake’s belly
- low man on the totem (pole)
- lucky as a bastard on Father’s Day
- lupus
- lurch, to leave in the
- Lushington
M
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#M
- MacGyver
- Maconochie
- (as) mad as a cut snake
- (as) mad as a hatter
- (as) mad as a March hare
- (as) mad as a meat-ax(e)
- (as) mad as a snake – (as) mad as snakes
- Madchester
- madding crowd, far from the
- madeleine
- mad money
- magpiety
- mahogany (to amputate one’s mahogany)
- mahogany reef
- mahogany ridge
- maiden’s prayer, the answer to
- to make a better door than (a) window
- to make a hash of something
- to make a spoon or spoil a horn
- to make a Virginia fence
- to make (both) ends meet
- to make no bones about something
- to make one’s marble(s) good
- Malabar Hilton
- Mallaby-Deeley
- Malley’s cow
- Mamamouchi
- MAMIL
- Manchester man (as opposed to Liverpool gentleman)
- man from Mars
- Manhattanhenge
- the (little) man in the boat
- the man on the Clapham omnibus
- the man outside Hoyt’s
- a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do
- marbles, to lose one’s
- March hare, (as) mad as a
- mardy
- mare nostrum
- marines, tell that to the
- Marquis of Queensberry (rules)
- marronnier – old chestnut
- marrowsky
- Martha (not to know whether one is Arthur or Martha)
- martini lunch
- maudlin
- mauley (the hand or fist)
- mauldy
- Maundy
- Mayday
- mayonnaise
- may your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down
- may your rabbits die
- meat (one man’s meat is another man’s poison)
- meat and two veg
- a memory like a sieve
- men in buckram
- the men in (the) white coats
- merrythought – wishbone
- mess of pottage
- Mexican standoff
- mice and men, of
- midinette
- midnight oil, to burn the
- might find a berth in Perth
- milk (to wash the milk off one’s liver)
- milliner
- million (as a magic number)
- a millstone round someone’s neck
- milquetoast
- a mind like a sieve
- Mintie
- Miss – Ms
- Miss Otis regrets
- to miss the bus
- Moab
- mockumentary
- molly (in molly-dook, molly-handed, etc.)
- Mondayitis
- money for old rope
- monkey (to put [something] where the monkey put(s) the nuts)
- Monsieur Crapaud
- Montezuma’s Revenge
- moon, once in a blue
- moon, over the
- moonraker
- moonshine
- more camp than a row of tents
- more front than (early Australian uses)
- more front than (British and Irish uses)
- more hide than Jessie
- morning, noon and night
- moron
- Morrison hour
- mortal coil, this
- Morton’s forkMother Carey’s chicken
- mothball (in/out of mothballs)
- Mother Carey’s chicken
- Mother Greenfield’s (lodgings)
- motherhood and apple pie
- Mothering Sunday
- mother’s ruin
- mouseburger
- mouser
- Mr – Mrs
- Mr Fixit
- Mr Nice Guy
- Mr Plod (policeman)
- Mrs Grundy
- Ms (combination of Mrs and Miss)
- Mummerset
- must have killed a Chinaman
- muttons, to return to one’s
- my (giddy, sainted, etc.) aunt!
- myrmidon
- my stars and garters!
- mystery bag
N
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#N
- Nacht und Nebel
- to nail one’s colours to the mast
- nail, on the
- to nail (to the counter)
- to name and shame
- nanny state
- nasty piece of work
- neatnik
- neck and crop
- neck of the woods
- neighbour(s) from hell
- neither fish nor fowl
- Nelson (until/when Nelson gets his eye back)
- nice but dim
- night (the night’s (only) a pup)
- nightcap
- nincompoopiana
- Nine-nine-nine
- nines, dressed to the
- the nineteenth hole
- no bread and butter of mine
- nod (a nod is as good as a wink)
- Noddy suit
- no feedin’ at Eden
- no good to Gundy
- no joy without alloy/annoy
- no love lost
- no lucre at Echuca
- no man’s land
- nom de —
- nom de disc
- no more Mr Nice Guy
- no names, no pack drill
- no room to swing a cat
- nose (to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face)
- nose, to pay through the
- nosey parker
- not a bone in the truck
- not a cat in hell’s chance
- nothingburger
- not just a pretty face
- not the only pebble on the beach
- not the sharpest —— in the ——
- not to be able to fight one’s way out of a paper bag
- not to be able to [verb] for toffee
- not to be just a pretty face
- not to have two yachts, or Rolls-Royces, to rub together
- not to know whether one is Arthur or Martha
- not worth a crumpet
- nul points
- nuppence
- nutshell, in a
O
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#O
- off one’s trolley
- of mice and men
- of that kidney
- oil on troubled waters, to pour
- ointment, a fly in the
- old chestnut – marronnier
- old school tie
- old soldier (to come the old soldier over someone)
- Oliver (a Roland for an Oliver)
- omelette
- OMG
- omnibus (the man on the Clapham omnibus)
- omnishambles
- once in a blue moon
- one for show and one for blow
- one from column A (and) one from column B
- one fell swoop, at
- one flash and you’re ash
- one for the road – stirrup cup
- one man’s meat is another man’s poison
- one may as well have the game as the name
- one’s best bib and tucker
- one’s trumpeter is dead
- one swallow does not make a summer
- onion (to know one’s onions)
- Onion Johnny
- the only game in town
- on the blanket
- on the buroo
- on the dole
- on the nail
- on the pig’s back
- on the side of the angels
- on the spur of the moment
- on the wrong side of the tracks
- oojah
- oojah-cum-spiff
- oojamaflip
- open and shet, sign o’ more wet
- to open the kimono
- opera (the opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings)
- orange (all Lombard Street to a China orange)
- ordeal
- the order of the bootout of one’s skull
- Ossa (to pile Pelion upon Ossa)
- to out-Herod Herod
- out of mothballs
- out of the blue
- outside the box
- to out-Zola Zola
- overpaid, overdressed, oversexed and over here
- over the moon
- over the top
- owlhoot
- Oxford comma
- oxygen
- oxymoron
- oyster, the world is one’s
P
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#P
- padoodle
- padre (gone on the padre’s bike)
- to paint the Forth Bridge
- to paint the map red, or pink
- to paint the town red
- pale, beyond the
- panda (pedestrian crossing)
- panda (police patrol car)
- pandemonium
- panier de crabes
- panjandrum
- pan-loafy
- pantile (flat cake or biscuit – sea-biscuit)
- paparazzi
- paper bag (not to be able to fight one’s way out of a paper bag)
- paper tiger
- paper yabber
- paranoid (even paranoids have enemies)
- paraphernalia
- Paris syndrome
- parlour (attributive modifier)
- parlour patriot
- parlour socialist | parlour socialism
- parson’s week
- part and parcel
- Parthian shot
- parting shot
- passion-killer
- to pass the parcel
- pastiche – pastis
- the patter of tiny feet
- Paul Pry
- to pay through the nose
- PC Plod (policeman)
- peaceable kingdom
- pebble (the only pebble on the beach)
- pedigree
- peeping Tom
- Pelion (to pile Pelion upon Ossa)
- pen (the pen is mightier than the sword)
- penny (the penny dropped)
- a penny soul never came to twopence
- permacrisis
- person from Porlock
- pester power
- the Pest from the West
- Peter Grievous
- petrichor
- Pharaoh’s Revenge
- Philip (to appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober)
- philtrum
- piano player in a brothel
- Piccadilly window
- picnic
- picnic (a sandwich short of a picnic)
- piece of work (unpleasant person)
- pig (to buy a pig in a poke)
- pig (to sweat like a pig)
- pig in a python
- pigs might fly
- pigeon à la crapaudine – toad-in-the-hole
- to pile Pelion upon Ossa
- pillar to post, from
- pineapple, the rough end of the
- pink
- pink on the map
- pin-up girl
- pip (to squeeze until the pips squeak)
- pipe dream
- piping hot
- Pip, Squeak and Wilfred
- pizza face (a person with facial acne)
- place in the sun
- plain vanilla
- to play a good knife and fork
- to play gooseberry
- to (play) hide the salami
- to (play) hide the sausage
- to play possum
- to play to the gallery
- please the pigs
- Plod (policeman)
- plonk (cheap inferior wine)
- plot (the plot thickens)
- plus-fours and no breakfast
- poacher turned gamekeeper
- pogue
- point-blank
- poison (one man’s meat is another man’s poison)
- the politics of the warm inner glow
- Pollyanna
- poodle-faker
- Pooh-Bah
- (as) poor as a church mouse
- to pop one’s clogs
- pork pie – porky pie – porky (rhyming slang for ‘lie’)
- port – starboard
- posh
- postal, to go
- postcode (used attributively)
- potato-box
- potato-jaw
- potato-trap
- POTUS
- poulet
- pound-noteish
- pour encourager les autres
- to pour oil on troubled waters
- powfagged
- pox doctor’s clerk
- pregnant
- pregnant and barefoot(ed)
- the proof of the pudding is in the eating
- prosecco socialist
- prunes and prism(s)
- P’s and Q’s
- public enemy number one
- pudding (in the pudding club)
- pudding (the proof of the pudding is in the eating)
- to pull one’s socks up
- to pull out all the stops
- to pull someone’s leg
- to pull the wool over someone’s eyes
- pumpkinification
- to punch a hole in a wet Echo
- pup (the night’s (only) a pup)
- pup, to sell a
- to push up daisies
- pussy’s bow (up to pussy’s bow)
- put a sock in it
- to put a tiger in one’s tank
- to put on one’s thinking cap
- to put [something] where the monkey put(s) the nuts
- to put the cat among the pigeons
- to put the frighteners on somebody
- to put the toothpaste back in the tube
Q
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#Q
- Queen (to take the (King’s/Queen’s) shilling)
- Queen Anne front and Mary Ann back
- Queen Anne is dead
- Queen Anne’s fan
- Queen Elizabeth is dead
- Queensberry rules
- Queensland (the Queensland salute)
- queue-jump
- (in) quick sticks
- quiz
R
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#R
- (white) rabbit(s) (good-luck incantation)
- Rachmanism
- rainbow (the end of the rainbow)
- to rain cats and dogs – part 1
- to rain cats and dogs – part 2
- to rain stair rods
- ranz-des-vaches
- raspberry (rude sound made by blowing with the tongue between the lips)
- a rat with a gold tooth
- rat (to smell a rat)
- razor gang
- to read the riot act
- real George
- the real Simon Pure
- to recharge one’s batteries
- red, to paint the town
- red herring
- red-light district
- red on the map
- red rag to a bull
- Red Sea pedestrian
- red top
- to reinvent the wheel
- reseda
- to return to one’s muttons
- rhesus
- rhubarb (theatrical term + denoting ‘nonsense’)
- rice pudding (couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding)
- Richard’s himself again
- Richard Snary
- to ride shotgun
- rift in the lute
- (as) right as a trivet
- the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing
- ring finger – annulaire
- riot act, to read the
- river, to sell down the
- river, to send up the
- roaring forties
- robot
- to rob Peter to pay Paul
- rocking-chair job
- rocking-chair money
- rocking horse (as scarce as rocking-horse manure)
- Roland (a Roland for an Oliver)
- Roman holiday
- roost, to rule the
- rose-coloured spectacles
- rosinback
- rôti sans pareil – turducken
- Rotten row
- the rough end of the pineapple
- royal we
- Ruby Murray (curry)
- rugby, racing and beer
- —— rule(s) OK
- to rule the roost
- to run like a hairy goat
- to run the gauntlet
S
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#S
- to sack
- sæva indignatio
- a safe pair of hands
- said the blind man (used in association with ‘see’)
- Sally, Aunt
- sandboy, (as) happy as a
- sandwich
- sandwich (a sandwich short of a picnic)
- sanglier
- sauce (what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander)
- (as) savage as a meat-ax(e)
- to save the day
- saved by the bell – sauvé par le gong
- savoury duck
- say boo to a goose, wouldn’t
- to say prunes
- scarlet letter
- schoolgirl complexion
- Scouse
- Scousette
- Scout’s honour
- sea (between the devil and the deep blue sea)
- season
- to see a man about a dog
- see that’s wet, see that’s dry
- to see which way the cat jumps
- see you later, agitator
- segocia
- to sell a pup
- sell-by date (to be past one’s sell-by date)
- to sell down the river
- to sell refrigerators to the Eskimos
- to sell sand in the Sahara
- to send a boy to do a man’s work
- send it down, Hughie!
- to send to Coventry
- to send up the river
- serendipity
- to set the cat among the pigeons
- to set the Thames on fire
- to settle someone’s hash
- sex and shopping
- a shag on a rock
- shambles
- Shank’s pony
- sheep, black
- shell-like (a word in your shell-like)
- shell out
- she’s apples
- shilling (to take the (King’s/Queen’s) shilling)
- ship (don’t spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar)
- shipshape and Bristol fashion
- shirt (keep your shirt on)
- shiver my timbers
- Shock-headed Peter
- shoe (another pair of shoes)
- shoe (to wait for a dead man’s shoes)
- to shoot the cat
- shopaholic – shopaholism
- shoplifting
- shopping trolley (i.e., Boris Johnson)
- to shop till one drops
- short-arm inspection
- short of a —— (mentally deficient, slightly crazy)
- short shrift
- shotgun (to ride shotgun)
- shotgun wedding
- shoulder, a chip on one’s
- shoulder, the cold
- should’ve gone to Specsavers
- show a leg
- Siberian Express
- sieve (a memory, or a mind, like a sieve)
- silent like the ‘p’ in swimming
- silk (you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear)
- silver lining, every cloud has a
- silver spoon (to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth)
- simon-pure
- Simon says
- simples (British interjection)
- sing ’em muck
- singing milkshake
- sirloin
- sixes and sevens, at
- six-hat and fifty-shirt
- six o’clock swill
- sixty-four (thousand) dollar question
- a skeleton at the feast
- skin (by the skin of one’s teeth)
- skinflint
- skinhead
- skirt patrol
- skull (out of one’s skull)
- slapstick
- Slav – slave
- to slave over a hot stove
- to sleep in Mother Greenfield’s (lodgings)
- to sleep like a top
- Sloane Ranger
- slobber-knocker – slobber-knock
- the Slough of Despond
- sly grog
- small beer
- small potatoes
- to smell a rat
- to smoke (you’ll be smoking next)
- smoke and mirrors
- a snake in the grass
- Snary, Richard
- sneeze
- a sniff of the barmaid’s apron
- (as) snug as [animal name] (in —)
- soap (how are you off for soap?)
- soapedy
- soap (opera)
- soccer
- soccer mom
- Socceroo
- social distancing
- sock (to pull one’s socks up)
- sock (put a sock in it)
- soft Mick
- soldier (to come the old soldier over someone)
- someone’s blood is worth bottling
- something nasty in the woodshed
- (from) soup to nuts
- sow (you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear)
- Spam medal
- spare the rod and spoil the child
- a spare tyre around the waistline
- Speed Gordon (in more trouble than Speed Gordon)
- spick and span
- to spin a yarn
- spine-bash
- spit and sawdust
- to spit the dummy
- spoil (don’t spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar)
- spoon (to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth)
- spoonerism
- sport
- a sprat to catch a mackerel
- spud
- spud-barber
- spud-bash – spud-basher – spud-bashing
- spur of the moment, on the
- Spy Wednesday
- squander-bug (British usage)
- square-eyed | square eyes
- squaw winter
- squeaky clean
- to squeeze a nickel until the Indian is riding the buffalo
- squeeze pidgin
- to squeeze until the pips squeak
- squid (you can’t tell the mind of a squid)
- squillion – squillionaire
- stalking horse
- stand and grow good
- starboard – port
- staycation
- to steal someone’s thunder
- stepmother ((as) cold as a stepmother’s breath)
- to sticker-lick – sticker-licker
- stick it up your jumper
- sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me
- to stick to one’s last
- stickybeak
- stirrup cup – one for the road
- stone (to leave no stone unturned)
- a storm, or a tempest, in a teacup, or in a teapot
- storm on Channel—Continent isolated
- straight and narrow, the
- straight from the horse’s mouth
- strawberry preacher
- Strine
- to study the history of the four kings (to play cards)
- summer of discontent
- sun (place in the sun)
- sunlit uplands
- sunstruck bone
- (as) sure as God made little apples
- svengali
- to have swallowed a dictionary
- one swallow does not make a summer
- to swap horses in midstream/while crossing a stream
- to sweat like a pig
- to sweat the small stuff
- swellegant
- swim, in the
- swoop, at one fell
T
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#T
- tabloid (1)
- tabloid (2)
- tace is Latin for candle
- Taffia
- take me to your leader (demand made by an extraterrestrial)
- to take one’s courage in both hands
- to take the checkered flag
- to take the (King’s/Queen’s) shilling
- to take time by the forelock
- to talk a glass eye to sleep
- to talk through (the back of) one’s neck
- tango (it takes two to tango)
- to tap the Admiral
- tar (don’t spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar)
- tart
- to teach one’s grandmother to suck eggs
- Teddy boy
- teeth like stars (false teeth)
- teetotal
- teetotum
- tell that to the marines
- a tempest, or a storm, in a teacup, or in a teapot
- une tempête dans un verre d’eau
- tennis
- tennis, anyone?
- Thames (to set the Thames on fire)
- to thank one’s (lucky) stars
- thank your mother for the rabbit(s)
- that cock won’t fight
- that dog won’t hunt
- that job’s jobbed
- that Kruschen feeling
- that schoolgirl complexion
- that way madness lies
- the answer to a maiden’s prayer
- the ant’s pants
- the Barcoo salute
- the Beast from the East
- the bee’s knees
- the big smoke
- (the) birds and (the) bees (the facts about sexual reproduction)
- the books of the four kings (playing cards)
- the books won’t freeze
- the cat’s whiskers
- the Clapham Sect
- the clean potato
- the cold shoulder
- the cup that cheers
- the day’s (only) a pup
- the devil to pay
- the dog’s letter
- the eighth wonder of the world
- the Emmaville Express
- the end of the rainbow
- the enemy within
- the fat lady (church ain’t out, the opera ain’t over, until the fat lady sings)
- the first cab off the rank
- the full monty
- the funny things you see when you haven’t got your gun
- the girls are bandy at Urandangie
- the gory details
- the (great) Australian adjective
- the (great) Australian salute
- the (great) god Bingo
- the Ham and Egg Parade
- the higher the fewer (answer to why is a mouse when it spins?)
- the history of the four kings (playing cards)
- the Kruschen feeling
- the land of fruits and nuts
- the land of Nod
- the last cab off the rank
- the (little) man in the boat
- the man on the Clapham omnibus
- the man outside Hoyt’s
- the men in (the) white coats
- the morning after the night before
- the next cab off the rank
- the night’s (only) a pup
- the nineteenth hole
- the only game in town
- the only pebble on the beach
- the opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings
- the order of the boot
- the patter of tiny feet
- the pen is mightier than the sword
- the penny dropped
- the Pest from the West
- the plot thickens
- the politics of the warm inner glow
- the proof of the pudding is in the eating
- the Queensland salute
- the real Simon Pure
- there’s no work in Bourke
- (there’s) trouble at t’mill
- the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing
- the river that flows upside down (the Yarra River)
- the road to hell is paved with good intentions
- the rough end of the pineapple
- the sharpest —— in the ——
- the skin of one’s teeth
- the Slough of Despond
- the straight and narrow
- the thick plottens
- the things I’ve done for England
- the things you see when you haven’t got your gun
- the toast of the town
- the Volvo set
- the whole boodle
- the whole box and dice
- the whole caboodle
- the witching hour
- the wogs begin at Calais
- (all) the world and his wife
- the world is one’s oyster
- the wrong side of the tracks
- (as) thick as thieves
- (as) thick as two short planks
- thick (the thick plottens)
- things are crook in Muswellbrook, or in Tallarook
- things are weak at Julia Creek
- the things you see when you haven’t got your gun
- thinking cap
- to think outside the box
- thirteen to the dozen
- this mortal coil
- three-martini lunch
- three on the hook and three on the book
- thrown out of better places than this
- a thumbnail dipped in tar
- thunder, to steal someone’s
- tickety-boo
- tiger (to have a tiger by the tail)
- tiger (to put a tiger in one’s tank)
- time (to take time by the forelock)
- time flies? you cannot: they go too fast
- tinker (not to give a tinker’s damn)
- tiswas
- tit for tat
- tittle – jot
- to a T – to a tee
- toad-in-the-hole – pigeon à la crapaudine
- toast (the toast of the town)
- toast, (as) warm as
- to toe the line
- toffee (not to be able to [verb] for toffee)
- toffee-nosed
- to toilet-paper
- Tom Mix in Cement
- Tom Pepper
- Tom Tiddler’s ground
- (with) tongue in cheek
- toot sweet
- tooth fairy
- top, to sleep like a
- Torygraph (nickname for The Daily Telegraph of London)
- Tory-lite
- to toss in a blanket
- to the nines, dressed
- tough titty
- tour d’ivoire – ivory tower
- town red, to paint the
- to T.P.
- to trail one’s coat
- to treat with ignore
- trick or treat
- trigger-happy
- trolley (off one’s trolley)
- trolley-dash
- (there’s) trouble at t’mill
- trumpery
- trumpeter (one’s trumpeter is dead)
- tulip
- turban
- turducken – rôti sans pareil
- to turn a blind eye
- T.W.O.C. (taking without owner’s consent)
- two is company, three is a crowd
- two left feet, or, two left hands
- two-martini lunch
- (Yorkshire) tyke
U
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#U
- uncle (Fiji uncle)
- underground mutton
- underpaid, underdressed, undersexed and under Eisenhower
- une tempête dans un verre d’eau
- to unfriend
- unshirted hell
- until hell freezes over
- until Nelson gets his eye back
- up in Annie’s room
- up the river
- up to dolly’s wax
- up to pussy’s bow
- useful idiot
- useful innocent
V
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#V
- valentine
- vanilla sex
- Vaseline Valley
- Vatican roulette
- a verandah over the toy shop
- Vicar of Bray
- vinegar trip
- Virginia fence (to make a Virginia fence)
- virtus dormitiva
- the Volvo set
W
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#W
- to wait for a dead man’s shoes
- Wales
- to walk a crack – to walk one’s chalks
- Wardour-Street English
- (as) warm as toast
- to warm the cockles of one’s heart
- warts and all
- to wash the milk off one’s liver
- watching paint dry, like
- we aim to please (you aim too, please)
- to wear cotton drawers
- to wear army boots
- well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs
- were you born in a barn/a field/a sawmill/a tent?
- wet blanket
- to wet one’s whistle
- we’ve got the time if you’ve got the inclination
- a whale of a (good) time
- what can you expect from a hog but a grunt?
- what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander
- when Nelson gets his eye back
- when push comes to shove
- where did you get your licence?
- where’s your white stick?
- where the bugs wear clogs
- where the monkey put(s) the nuts
- where there’s muck, there’s brass
- where the rubber meets the road
- white ants
- white poppy
- (white) rabbit(s) (good-luck incantation)
- the whole boodle
- the whole caboodle
- who’s for tennis?
- who’s robbing this coach?
- who’s robbing this train?
- who’s ‘she’—the cat’s mother?
- who stole your scone?
- why is a mouse when it spins?
- (as) wicked as a meat-ax(e)
- widow’s cruse
- Will (black, or dark, over Bill’s, or Will’s, mother’s)
- william-nilliam
- windfall tax
- window
- winedot
- wink (a nod is as good as a wink)
- winter of discontent (the winter of 1978-79 in Britain)
- wishbone – merrythought
- wishful thinker – wishful thinking
- witches’ knickers
- witching hour
- Witham
- within a bull’s roar of
- without a bone in the truck
- (with) tongue in cheek
- wogs begin at Calais
- wokerati
- wood-and-water joey
- woodshed, something nasty in the
- wool (to pull the wool over someone’s eyes)
- a word in your shell-like
- the world is one’s oyster
- worm’s-eye view
- to worship under Dr. Greenfield
- wouldn’t say boo to a goose
- wouldn’t work in an iron lung
- would you buy a used, or a second-hand, car from this man?
- wreck (like the wreck of the Hesperus)
- wrong tree, to be barking up the
X
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#X
Y
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#Y
- yabber
- ye gods and little fishes
- yellow peril
- Yorkshire tyke
- you can call me anything, so long as you don’t call me late to dinner
- you can’t have your cake and eat it
- you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear
- you can’t tell the mind of a squid
- you’ll be smoking next
- (you’re) damned if you do and damned if you don’t
- you’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself
- your head’s on fire
- your mother wears army boots
- you, too, can have a body like mine
- you’ve shot your granny
Z
(E?)(L?) https://wordhistories.net/alphabetical-index/#Z