the authentic origin of ‘to turn a blind eye’
early 19th century—shortening of ‘to turn the deaf ear and the blind eye’ and variants
Read MoreCategory: etymology
a linguistic investigation into hooliganism
UK, late 19th cent.—probably a rendering of an Irish patronym, based on stereotypes generated by Irish immigration to Britain and popularised by theatre
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘Mother Carey’s chicken’
probably from Latin ‘Mater Cara’ or Italian ‘Madre Cara’, ‘dear mother’, i.e. the Virgin Mary, believed by sailors to send the petrel as a harbinger of storms
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘the Slough of Despond’
the name of a deep boggy place at the beginning of Christian’s journey to the Celestial City in ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ (1678), by John Bunyan
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘warts and all’
said to have originated in Oliver Cromwell’s instructions to the painter Peter Lely to represent him as he truly was, without concealing his blemishes
Read Moreorigin of ‘eavesdrop’
‘To eavesdrop’ originally referred to standing within the eavesdrop (the ground on to which water drips from the eaves of a house) in order to overhear what is going on inside.
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘ivory tower’ (‘tour d’ivoire’)
1837—used by Sainte-Beuve to describe French poet Vigny’s seclusion in a turret room and preoccupation with inspiration unconnected with practical matters
Read Morethe emergence of ‘boycott’ in The Freeman’s Journal, Dublin, in 1880
from the name of Captain Charles C. Boycott, land agent in Ireland, who was ostracised for refusing to reduce rents during the Land League agitation in 1880
Read Moreorigin of ‘to break the ice’
from the image of breaking the frozen surface of a river in order to make a passage for boats – probably from Latin ‘scindere glaciem’, in Erasmus’s Adages
Read More‘bad hair day’ (when everything seems to go badly)
US, 1990s—a day on which one’s hair is unmanageable, hence a day on which everything seems to go wrong, a period of unusual agitation, frustration or uneasiness
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word histories 