The literal meaning of ‘easel’ is ‘ass’ (beast of burden).

19th January 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

The noun ‘easel’ was borrowed from Dutch ‘ezel’; this sense of ‘ezel’ is a metaphorical extension of its literal meaning, ‘ass’, from the fact that, like a beast of burden, an easel is used to carry things. Likewise, the literal meaning of the synonymous French word ‘chevalet’ is ‘little horse’.

meaning and origin of ‘violon d’Ingres’

5th January 2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

First recorded in The Bystander (London) on 24 January 1906, this French phrase means ‘hobby, pastime’; it refers to the passion that the French painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) had for playing the violin.

British and French Twelfth-Day traditions

3rd January 2018.Reading time 11 minutes.

Twelfth Day denotes the twelfth day after Christmas, i.e. 6th January, on which the festival of the Epiphany is celebrated, and which was formerly observed as the closing day of the Christmas festivities. (Epiphany denotes the festival commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi; via Old-French and Anglo-Norman forms such as epyphane (Modern […]

the changing identities of the doryphore

27th December 2017.Reading time 12 minutes.

Greek ‘δορυϕόρος’ (‘doruphόros’) meant ‘spearman’; in French, ‘doryphore’ denotes the Colorado beetle and the German occupying forces during WWII; in English, it denotes a pedantic and annoyingly persistent critic.

the queen’s cushion, a Scottish makeshift seat

25th December 2017.Reading time 7 minutes.

‘queen’s’, or ‘king’s’, ‘cushion’: a seat made by two people who cross arms and hold each other’s hands to form a support for another person—Scotland and northern England, 19th century

meaning and origin of ‘Mrs Grundy’

13th November 2017.Reading time 16 minutes.

from Speed the Plough (1798), by Thomas Morton; Dame Ashfield is constantly fearing to give occasion for the sneers of Mrs Grundy, her unseen neighbour

‘famous for fifteen minutes’

3rd November 2017.Reading time 6 minutes.

apparently misattributed to Andy Warhol in the book published for the first European retrospective of his work at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, in 1968

meaning and origin of ‘old school tie’

8th October 2017.Reading time 20 minutes.

UK, 1929—the attitudes, loyalties, values, etc., associated with British public schools—from the distinctive tie that indicates which school the wearer attended

origin of ‘bedlam’: the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem

7th October 2017.Reading time 11 minutes.

late Middle English—early form of ‘Bethlehem’, originally referring to the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London, used as an institution for the insane