“ad fontes!”
USA, 1888—at variance/in line with the (likely) thought, practice or judgement of the future; at odds/coincident with how commentators view (or are likely to view) an issue or action retrospectively
Read MoreUK, 1866, sailors’ slang: a straw mattress—Australia, 1884: a straw hat—in reference to donkeys’ diet
Read More1777, in a translation of a letter written by Voltaire in 1768—a loan translation from French ‘l’histoire n’est qu’une fable convenue’, first used in 1758 by the French philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius
Read MoreAustralia, 1957—to gain weight around one’s middle
Read MoreUK, 1812—an imaginary functionary humorously supposed to control the state of the weather—also ‘clerk of the weather office’
Read MoreUK, 1965—humorous—the Soviet supersonic airliner Tupolev Tu-144—from ‘Concorde’, the name of an Anglo-French supersonic airliner, and the suffix ‘-ski’, in humorous imitation of Russian
Read MoreU.S. slang, 1986—a march into or out of a police car, courthouse, etc., that a person in police custody is made to perform for the benefit of the news media—‘perp’: shortening of ‘perpetrator’
Read MoreUK, 1822—a vituperative gossip, a scandalmonger; an evil or malicious tongue—a borrowing from French ‘mauvaise langue’ (literally ‘bad tongue’) of same significations
Read Moreone who rides a surfboard with the right foot forward instead of the left—USA, 1960 (as a verb)—here, ‘goofy’ seems to be related to prejudice against left-handedness and left-footedness
Read More1546—of little or no worth—here, ‘pudding’ refers to a sausage-like mass of seasoned minced meat, oatmeal, etc., stuffed into a prepared skin and boiled
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word histories 