a Lancashire phrase: ‘the full monty’
something in its entirety—UK, 2nd half of 20th cent.—the sense of striptease performance involving full nudity was popularised by the 1997 film The Full Monty.
Read MoreCategory: etymology
origin of ‘up the river’ (to prison)
US, 19th cent.—‘to send up the river’ (to send to prison)—originally referred to Sing Sing prison, situated up the Hudson River from the city of New York
Read Morethe meaning of ‘wuthering’ in ‘Wuthering Heights’
In the name of the farmhouse, ‘wuthering’ is a “provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.”
Read More‘To sell down the river’ originated in the history of American slavery.
This phrase originated in the history of American slavery: the river was the Mississippi and down implied the transfer of slaves from north to south.
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘shiver my timbers’
British, 18th century—a mock oath attributed to sailors, meaning ‘may my ship’s beams be broken into pieces’—early variants used by Tobias Smollett
Read Moreorigin of ‘a baker’s dozen’ and ‘thirteen to the dozen’
from the bakers’ former practice of adding a loaf to a dozen, either as a safeguard against accusations of giving light weight or as the retailer’s profit
Read Moreorigin of ‘the world is my oyster’
refers to the possibility of finding a pearl in an oyster—coined by Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor, perhaps in allusion to a proverb
Read Moresexual origin of ‘merrythought’ (‘wishbone’)
‘merrythought’, late 16th century— the forked bone between the neck and breast of a bird—so called from its resemblance to a woman’s external genitals
Read More‘no man’s land’ and three different types of death
‘no man’s land’—first a place of execution outside London; then a mass burial ground during the Black Death; later an unoccupied zone between opposing forces
Read Morethe origin of ‘to pull the wool over someone’s eyes’?
‘to pull the wool over someone’s eyes’, US, 1830s—perhaps from sheep farming: the hair that grows around a sheep’s eyes can get into them and blind the animal.
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