“ad fontes!”
UK, 1865—a Christmas-season party game in which players walk around a decreasing number of chairs while music is played, the loser in each round being the one who fails to find a seat when the music stops
Read MoreUSA, 1871—is used of any incentive or reward that is perpetually promised but never actually delivered—refers to a sign displayed as an advertisement for a barber’s shop
Read MoreUK, 1759: first applied to Japan—1794 (during the French Revolution): the disparaging use in reference to Britain was popularised by the French phrase ‘nation boutiquière’
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 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
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word histories 