Why does ‘season’ mean both ‘a division of the year’ and ‘to flavour’?
‘to season’, from Old French ‘saisonner’: ‘to do something during the proper season’, hence ‘to make appropriate to the circumstances’, ‘to flavour (a dish)’
Read MoreCategory: French/English
a Shakespearean phrase: ‘this mortal coil’
the troubles and activities of the world—literary or humorous, from Hamlet’s speech “to be or not be”—‘coil’: probably from Middle French ‘acueil’, encounter
Read Morethe meaning of ‘wuthering’ in ‘Wuthering Heights’
In the name of the farmhouse, ‘wuthering’ is a “provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.”
Read Moreorigin of ‘a baker’s dozen’ and ‘thirteen to the dozen’
from the bakers’ former practice of adding a loaf to a dozen, either as a safeguard against accusations of giving light weight or as the retailer’s profit
Read Moreto cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face
history (and Latin and French equivalents) of ‘to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face’ (to carry out a vengeful action that hurts oneself more than another)
Read Moreorigin of ‘the world is my oyster’
refers to the possibility of finding a pearl in an oyster—coined by Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor, perhaps in allusion to a proverb
Read Morethe making of ‘omelette’
1611—from French ‘omelette’, ultimately an alteration of ‘lemelle’, ‘knife blade’ (from Latin ‘lamella’), with reference to the flattened shape of the dish
Read Moretour d’ivoire – ivory tower
1837—used by Sainte-Beuve to describe French poet Vigny’s seclusion in a turret room and preoccupation with inspiration unconnected with practical matters
Read Morelet’s return to our muttons
to return to the matter in hand—from French ‘revenons à nos moutons’ (‘let’s return to our sheep’), allusion to ‘La Farce de Maistre Pierre Pathelin’ (ca 1457)
Read Moreorigin of ‘to break the ice’
from the image of breaking the frozen surface of a river in order to make a passage for boats – probably from Latin ‘scindere glaciem’, in Erasmus’s Adages
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