‘culture vulture’ (a person who is voracious for culture)
USA, 1931—phrase based on the phonetic similarity of the two words that compose it—implies lack of discrimination
Read More“ad fontes!”
USA, 1931—phrase based on the phonetic similarity of the two words that compose it—implies lack of discrimination
Read Moreprobably refers to pregnancy as an awkward condition, the image being apparently of an uncomfortable position at the top of a pole
Read Moreto be insane—late 19th century—originated in the fact that in 19th-century productions of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, Ophelia appeared with straws in her hair in her ‘mad scene’
Read MoreUK, 1832—‘the awkward age’: the adolescence, when one is no longer a child but not yet properly grown up, a time of life characterised by physical and emotional changes—translates in French as ‘l’âge ingrat’, ‘the thankless age’
Read MoreThe 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’.
Read MoreFirst 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.
Read MoreTwelfth 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 […]
Read MoreGreek ‘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.
Read More‘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
Read Morefrom Speed the Plough (1798), by Thomas Morton; Dame Ashfield is constantly fearing to give occasion for the sneers of Mrs Grundy, her unseen neighbour
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