‘loony bin’: meaning and origin
1913 and 1921 in stories by English author P. G. Wodehouse—a facetious appellation for a home or hospital for people with mental illnesses—‘loony’: shortened form of ‘lunatic’
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‘to laugh like a drain’: meaning and origin
UK, 1935—to laugh loudly and coarsely—alludes to the sound of water gurgling down a drain
Read More‘to nail one’s colours to the mast’: meanings and origin
UK, 1808—to make one’s beliefs or intentions plain—from the former practice of nailing an ensign to the mast of a ship, after damage during battle resulted in the ship’s colours no longer being clearly displayed, which otherwise might have been interpreted as a signal of surrender
Read More‘fair-weather friend’: meaning and early occurrences
UK, 1685—a person who is friendly only when it is easy or convenient to be so, whose friendship cannot be relied on in times of difficulty
Read More‘Heavens to Betsy’: meaning and early occurrences
USA, 1857—an exclamation expressing surprise or dismay—the motivation for the choice of the female forename ‘Betsy’ (variant of ‘Betty’, pet form of ‘Elizabeth’) is unknown
Read More‘before one can say Jack Robinson’: meaning and origin
UK, 1763—extremely quickly or suddenly—in all probability, the male forename ‘Jack’, pet form of ‘John’, typifies an ordinary man, and the surname ‘Robinson’ is a generic personal name
Read More‘Vaseline Valley’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1982—a stretch of Oxford Street, in Sydney, which is the city’s main gay district—refers to the use of Vaseline to ease anal intercourse, and based on the alliteration in /v/
Read More‘Jimmy Woodser’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1876—a person drinking alone at a bar; a drink taken alone—origin unknown—perhaps related to ‘Johnny Warder’, denoting “an idle drunkard who hangs about pub corners looking for a drink”
Read More‘spit and sawdust’: meaning and origin
UK, 1928—of a public-house: very basic and lacking in comforts—refers to the former practice of covering the floor of a public-house with sawdust into which customers spat
Read Morehistory of the noun ‘honeymoon’
1546—originally designated the period of time following a wedding, and arose from the comparison of the mutual affection of newly-married persons to the changing moon, which is no sooner full than it begins to wane
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