“ad fontes!”
Australia—‘charity dame’ 1949—‘charity moll’ 1962—an amateur prostitute who charges less than the usual rate—from ‘Moll’, pet form of the female forename ‘Mary’, the noun ‘moll’ has long been used to designate a prostitute
Read Moreout of one’s mind, extremely annoyed—Australia, 1900; New Zealand, 1907—originally as ‘(as) mad as a snake’, ‘(as) mad as snakes’ and variants—later as ‘(as) mad as a cut snake’
Read MoreUSA, 1825—the phrases that are built on the pattern ‘(as) [adjective] as a meat-ax(e)’ intensify the meaning of the adjective—this adjective can be ‘savage’, ‘wicked’, or ‘mad’
Read Moreleft-handed: ‘molly-handed’, ‘mauldy’, ‘molly-dooked’—a left-handed person: ‘molly-hander’, ‘mauldy’, ‘molly-dook’—‘molly’ and ‘mauldy’ may derive from ‘mauley’, denoting the hand or fist; ‘dook’ is ‘duke’, denoting the hand or fist
Read MoreAustralia, 1885; New Zealand, 1894—indicates that a person is suffering from bad luck—the implication is that this bad luck is punishment for a crime committed by the person
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Australia, 1954—derogatory nickname for the metal eagle at the top of the Australian-American Memorial in Canberra—alludes to the fact that, from a distance, the eagle’s upswept wings look like a rabbit’s ears
Read MoreAustralia, 1878—a knockout blow; anything of exceptional size or force—allegedly alludes to a boxer called Dinny Hayes—but no evidence supports this allegation
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Australia, 1944—utterly worthless—one of the phrases built on the pattern ‘not worth a —’, such as ‘not worth a tinker’s curse’
Read Morealso ‘Christmas grip’—Australia, prison slang, 1953—a grabbing of another’s testicles—the image is of a handful of nuts
Read MoreAustralia, 1930—when used negatively, means ‘far away from’; when used affirmatively, means ‘not too far away from’—refers to the fact that a roaring bull can be heard over a great distance
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word histories 