“ad fontes!”
1777, 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 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 Morethe earliest occurrences of ‘feet of clay’, used without explicit reference to the Bible, date from the French Revolution (1789-1799) and translate French ‘pieds d’argile’
Read Moreslang, disparaging: a person of small stature—from 1677 onwards in bilingual dictionaries (English-French and French-English) by Guy Miege
Read MoreUK, 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 Morethe returns from an activity or undertaking do not warrant the time, money or effort required—calque of French ‘le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle’—1603, in John Florio’s translation of Montaigne’s Essays
Read MoreUK, 1917—‘what an idiot!’—a borrowing from French
Read MoreUK, 1884—‘what a surprise!’—a borrowing from French—chiefly used ironically, to imply that a situation or event is unsurprising, typical or predictable
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USA, 1936—characteristic or reminiscent of the Left Bank (‘Rive Gauche’ in French), the part of Paris south of the River Seine, noted for its intellectual and artistic life
Read MoreFrench, 1848; English, 1861—a small, oblong cake made of choux pastry, filled with cream, and typically topped with chocolate icing—literally ‘lightning’—origin unknown
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word histories 