“ad fontes!”
the killing of a woman or girl by a man—French ‘femmicide’: 1839; 1854 in the sense of a man who has killed a woman—English ‘femicide’: 1801; 1827 in the sense of a man who has killed a woman
Read MoreFrench, 1648: ‘famicide’; 1684: ‘femmicide’; 1695: ‘femmicide’—English, 1718: ‘femmicide’ (from French)—the killing of a woman or girl by a man
Read Morethe discipline of moving rapidly and freely over or around the obstacles presented by an urban environment by running, jumping, climbing, etc.—French—altered spelling of the noun ‘parcours’ in ‘parcours d’obstacles’ (i.e., ‘obstacle course’)
Read Morewithout pressure from, or partiality to, any person or other external influence—1638, as a translation of French ‘sans crainte et sans respect’ (‘without fear and without respect’)
Read MoreUK, 1841—to be crowded or confined tightly together, as sardines in a tin
Read More‘to have a fancy for’—UK, 1900—loan translation from French ‘avoir un béguin pour’—French ‘béguin’ is from ‘s’embéguiner de’, meaning ‘to put on a bonnet’, hence ‘to put a sudden capricious idea into one’s head’
Read More‘one might hear a pin drop’ (UK, 1739): the silence and sense of expectation are intense—‘one can hear a pin drop’ (UK, 1737): one has a keen sense of hearing
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France—1883: Viennese-style baked goods—1887: a bakery that makes and sells this type of baked goods—those baked goods were introduced into France in 1839 by the Austrian entrepreneur August Zang
Read MoreUK, 1839—France, 1843—the best people in a group, or the best type of a particular thing—a borrowing from French ‘crème de la crème’, literally ‘cream of the cream’
Read MoreUK, 1992—coined by Alan Clark during the Matrix Churchill trial—variant of ‘to be economical with the truth’, meaning: to deceive people by deliberately not telling them the whole truth about something
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word histories 