“ad fontes!”
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
Read MoreUK, 1841—to be crowded or confined tightly together, as sardines in a tin
Read MoreUK & 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
Read More‘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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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
Read MoreUK, 1933—cursive handwriting as learnt in elementary school as a stage beyond printing individual letters separately—from the adjective ‘joined-up’, meaning ‘conjoined’
Read Morea 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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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’
Read More1673—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
Read More‘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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word histories 