‘whingebag’: meaning and origin
a person who habitually complains or whines—UK, 1985—one of the compounds in which the second element ‘bag’ denotes a person displaying the undesirable quality denoted by the first element
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‘Froggy-land’: meaning and origin
UK, 19th century—a humorous appellation for France—from the noun ‘Froggy’, designating a French person—but ‘froggy land’, with lower-case initials, was originally used of any wetland
Read More‘to cross a bridge when one comes to it’: meaning and origin
to deal with a problem when and if it arises, but not beforehand—11th January 1849 in The Independent (New York City, New York, USA)
Read More‘to shock the bourgeois’: meaning and origin
to shake or shock traditional ethical and/or artistic middle-class attitudes—UK, 1874—perhaps a loan translation from French ‘choquer le(s) bourgeois’—France, 1858
Read More‘épater le(s) bourgeois’: meaning and origin
to shake or shock traditional ethical and/or artistic middle-class attitudes—UK, 1882—a borrowing from French—France, 1854
Read More‘one’s heart rules one’s head’: meaning and early occurrences
USA, 1836—one is governed by one’s feelings rather than by rational or practical considerations
Read More‘to throw out a tub to the whale’: meaning and origin
to create a diversion, in order to avoid a dangerous or unpleasant situation—UK, 1730—alludes to the Preface to A Tale of a Tub (1704), by Jonathan Swift
Read More‘to smoke like a chimney’: meaning and origin
to smoke tobacco very heavily —UK, 1824, as “smoking away like the chimney of the King of the Netherlands”
Read More‘fug-soccer’: meaning and origin
indoor football—UK, public-school & university slang, 1897—‘fug’: a thick, close, stuffy atmosphere, especially that of a room overcrowded and with little or no ventilation
Read More‘lust at first sight’: meaning and origin
USA, 1914—an instant, strong sexual desire for someone whom one has never previously seen—humorous variant of ‘love at first sight’
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