“ad fontes!”
UK, 1882—‘penny’ refers to inexpensiveness, and ‘puzzle’ to the mysterious nature of the ingredients—perhaps also in humorous allusion to ‘penny puzzle’ in the sense of a puzzle-card sold on the street for one penny
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also ‘in a wad’, ‘in a knot’, etc.—to become unduly agitated or angry—the plural noun ‘panties’ refers to short underpants worn by women or girls—American English, 1975
Read MoreUK, 1839—jocular variant of ‘penny-a-liner’ (i.e., a journalist who was paid at the rate of a penny a line, a person who produced mediocre journalistic work) with the implication that such journalists fabricated falsehoods
Read MoreUK, early 19th century, derogatory—used attributively of a journalist who was paid at the rate of a penny a line, hence also of low-quality writing
Read MoreUK, mid-19th century—a circular curl of hair (sometimes artificial), usually pressed flat against the temple or forehead
Read Moremid-19th century—a small bonnet standing far back on the head, which was then fashionable—also occasionally in the extended form ‘kiss-me-quick, mother’s coming’
Read MoreAustralia & UK, 1856—a circular curl of hair (sometimes artificial), usually pressed flat against the temple or forehead
Read Morea Latin-American television soap opera—from American-Spanish ‘tele-’ (in ‘televisión’) and ‘novela’ (‘a novel’)—1959 in American Spanish, 1961 in American English
Read Morea tachograph—coined in Manchester (England), in September 1968, by lorry drivers who opposed the proposed introduction of the tachograph into lorries
Read Moreto live in excessively close proximity or interdependence—1762: “the company squeezed themselves into one another’s pockets” in a letter by Horace Walpole
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word histories 