the birth of the colourful noun ‘cackleberry’
USA, 1889—humorous, informal: a hen’s egg—composed of ‘cackle’, the raucous clucking cry given by a hen, especially after laying an egg, and of ‘berry’
Read MoreCategory: linguistics
an investigation into the origin of the portmanteau word ‘bankster’
USA, 1931—presented as being of French origin, but French earliest known uses, in 1933, are from American English
Read More‘culture vulture’ (a person who is voracious for culture)
USA, 1931—phrase based on the phonetic similarity of the two words that compose it—implies lack of discrimination
Read Moreorigin of ‘bee’ (social gathering for a specific purpose)
USA, late 18th century—perhaps a folk-etymological alteration of British dialectal variants of ‘boon’, meaning ‘help given by neighbours’
Read MoreHow ‘to call a spade a spade’ originated in a mistranslation.
originated in the mistranslation by Erasmus of Greek ‘skáphē’ (meaning anything hollowed out) as a word denoting a digging tool
Read Morethe American-English origin of the phrase ‘like greased lightning’
denotes extreme quickness of movement—the use of ‘greased’ likens lightning to a machine that a mechanic has lubricated in order to minimise the friction and make it run easily
Read Moreone more discussion about ‘Indian summer’
the problems with the “novel origin story for ‘Indian Summer’” put forward by Matthew R. Halley in Notes and Queries (September 2017)
Read Moreorigin of ‘avoirdupois’: goods sold by weight
from Old French and Anglo-Norman ‘aveir de peis’, ‘goods of weight’, as distinguished from the goods sold by measure or number
Read Morethe authentic—and simple—origin of ‘sleep tight’
In the phrase ‘sleep tight’ (USA, 1873), the adjective ‘tight’ is used as an adverb meaning ‘soundly’, i.e. ‘deeply and without disturbance’, as in the combination ‘tight asleep’ (USA, 1847).
Read More‘maelstrom’ (a whirlpool off the west coast of Norway)
late 16th century—from early modern Dutch ‘maelstrom’ (now ‘maalstroom’)—originally a proper name designating a powerful whirlpool in the Arctic Ocean, off the west coast of Norway, which was formerly supposed to suck in and destroy all vessels within a wide radius
Read More
word histories 