origin of ‘Gorgeous Wrecks’ (members of the Volunteer Training Corps)
‘Gorgeous Wrecks’ (UK, WWI): members of the Volunteer Training Corps, from the letters ‘G.R.’ (‘Government Recognition’) interpreted as meaning ‘Georgius Rex’
Read MoreCategory: etymology
sense evolution and origin of ‘conundrum’
The word ‘conundrum’, attested in 1596, originally meant ‘whimsy’, ‘oddity’. It perhaps originated as a parody of some Latin scholastic phrase.
Read Moreorigin of ‘Grauniad’ (colloquial name for The Guardian)
‘Grauniad’, the nickname for the Guardian, was reportedly given to this British newspaper by the magazine Private Eye because of its typesetting errors.
Read Moreorigin and meanings of ‘jingo’
The current sense of ‘jingo’ originated in a 1877 patriotic song adopted by the bellicose factions within the Conservative Party during the Russo-Turkish war.
Read Moreorigin of the word ‘immolate’
The verb ‘immolate’ is from Latin ‘immolare’, meaning, literally, ‘to sprinkle (a victim) with sacrificial meal’, from ‘mola salsa’, ‘salted spelt-meal’.
Read Moreorigin of the word ‘sneeze’
The verb ‘sneeze’ is an alteration of the obsolete verb ‘fnese’ due to misreading or misprinting it as ‘ſnese’ (= ‘snese’).
Read Moreorigin of the adverb ‘cap-a-pie’ (from head to foot)
English ‘cap-a-pie’ is from ‘de cap à pied’, ‘from head to foot’, used in Occitan and in the Middle French of southern France.
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘to lick into shape’
This phrase originated in the belief that bear cubs were born formless and had to be licked into shape by their mother.
Read Moreorigin of the word ‘pink’
The noun ‘pink’ for the flower is perhaps short for ‘pink eye’, ‘small or half-shut eye’ (cf. French ‘œillet’, ‘carnation’, diminutive of ‘œil’, ‘eye’).
Read Morethe various meanings of ‘earthling’
Before being a science-fiction term used by aliens to refer to an inhabitant of the earth, ‘earthling’ denoted an inhabitant of the earth as opposed to heaven.
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word histories 