notes on ‘to ghostwrite’ and on ‘ghostwriter’
UK, 1907: ‘to ghostwrite’ (to write a book, an article, etc., for another person, under whose name it is then published—USA, 1908: ‘ghostwriter’ (a person who ghostwrites)
Read MoreCategory: etymology
‘woman-ridden’: meaning and early occurrences
dominated by a woman or by women—UK, 1809—past participle of ‘ride’, ‘ridden’ combines with nouns to form adjectives meaning: afflicted, affected or dominated by something or by someone specified
Read Morenotes on the nouns ‘woodpushing’ and ‘woodpusher’
‘woodpushing’: chess-playing, draughts-playing—‘woodpusher’: a chess-player, a draughts-player—refers to the wooden pieces that chess-players and draughts-players move across the board
Read Moreearly occurrences of ‘mother-in-law’s chair’ (i.e., cactus)
UK, 1951—‘mother-in-law’s chair’, ‘mother-in-law’s cushion’ and ‘mother-in-law’s seat’ are colloquial appellations for the globular spiny cactus Echinocactus grusonii, native to Mexico
Read More‘mother-in-law seat’: meaning and origin
an uncovered extra seat at the back or on the side of a two-seater motor car—USA, 1907
Read More‘mother-in-law joke’: meanings and origin
USA, 1874—a joke made at the expense of the joke-teller’s (real or fictitious) mother-in-law; this type of joke considered (especially depreciatively) as a genre
Read More‘skin and grief’: meaning and origin
British, 1771—as an adjective: emaciated; weak and starving—as a noun: an emaciated or starving person
Read More‘Mother of Parliaments’: meanings and origin
England; also: the British Parliament—UK, 1857—popularised in 1865 by the British politician John Bright
Read More‘Mrs Mop’: meaning and origin
a charwoman, a cleaning lady—UK, 1940—popularised in 1942 by the charwoman’s name in the BBC radio comedy series ‘It’s That Man Again’
Read More‘Mrs Dale-ish’: meaning and origin
conventionally middle-class—UK, 1953—from ‘Mrs Dale’, the name of a conventional middle-class woman in Mrs Dale’s Diary, a BBC radio serial broadcast from 1948 to 1969
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