‘little-girl-lost’ | ‘little-boy-lost’: meaning and origin
USA, early 1930s—adjectives—‘little-girl-lost’: resembling (that of) a small girl who has lost her way—‘little-boy-lost’: resembling (that of) a small boy who has lost his way
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‘to roll back the years’: meaning and early occurrences
Britain, 1782—to evoke or recreate a previous time, state or condition; to make it seem as if no time has passed
Read More‘flesh-tailor’: meaning and origin
one who sews up wounds, i.e., a surgeon—also, in later use, a plastic surgeon—first recorded in ’Tis Pitty Shee’s a Whore (1633), by the English playwright John Ford
Read More‘love-bite’: meanings and origin
UK, 1749—a playful bite on the skin from a lover; a kiss delivered with a sucking action, leaving a temporary mark on the skin, especially as a sexual act; a mark left on the skin by such a kiss
Read More‘to roll down to St. Helena’: meaning and origin
of a vessel: to advance steadily under a favourable wind, without having to change tack or sail—UK, 1807, in reference to the voyage from the Cape of Good Hope to the remote South-Atlantic island of St. Helena
Read More‘penny-a-liar’: meaning and origin
UK, 1839—jocular variant of ‘penny-a-liner’ (i.e., a journalist who was paid at the rate of a penny a line, a person who produced mediocre journalistic work) with the implication that such journalists fabricated falsehoods
Read More‘kiss-me-quick’ (bonnet): meaning and origin
mid-19th century—a small bonnet standing far back on the head, which was then fashionable—also occasionally in the extended form ‘kiss-me-quick, mother’s coming’
Read More‘kiss-curl’: meaning and origin
Australia & UK, 1856—a circular curl of hair (sometimes artificial), usually pressed flat against the temple or forehead
Read More‘to live in each other’s pockets’: meaning and early occurrences
to live in excessively close proximity or interdependence—1762: “the company squeezed themselves into one another’s pockets” in a letter by Horace Walpole
Read More‘piehole’: meaning and origin
a person’s mouth—U.S. slang, 1983
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