‘to judge a book by its cover’: meaning and origin

17th Sep 2021.Reading time 8 minutes.

USA, 1837—to make assumptions about someone or something based on appearance or on superficial characteristics—the metaphor occurs in the preface to ‘Truth in Fiction: Or, Morality in Masquerade. A Collection of Two hundred twenty five Select Fables of Æsop, and other Authors’ (London, 1708), by Edmund Arwaker

‘bread-artist’: meaning and origin

16th Sep 2021.Reading time 17 minutes.

an artist or writer who produces what is considered to be inferior work simply to earn a living—loan translation from German ‘Brotkünstler’—first used in 1827 by Scottish historian and political philosopher Thomas Carlyle in a text about German literature

‘to break a butterfly on a wheel’: meaning and origin

14th Sep 2021.Reading time 13 minutes.

to use unnecessary force in destroying something fragile—alludes to a wheel used as an instrument of torture—first occurs in An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot (1734), by the English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744), who perhaps coined this phrase

‘box of ivories’, ‘kissing-trap’ and other slang expressions for the mouth

8th Sep 2021.Reading time 8 minutes.

The following slang expressions have been used to designate the mouth: ‘box of ivories’ (also ‘ivory-box’); ‘box of dominoes’ (also ‘domino-box’); ‘bone-box’; ‘potato-box’; ‘potato-jaw’; ‘potato-trap’; ‘kissing-trap’.

‘to be a box of birds’: meaning and origin

7th Sep 2021.Reading time 8 minutes.

Australia and New Zealand, 1939—to be in good spirits, ‘chirpy’—the image is of a boxful of chirping birds (cf. the extended form ‘happy as a bird in a box of birdseed’)—New-Zealand variant ‘to be a box of fluffy ducks’, also ‘to be a box of fluffies’

‘girls will be girls’: meaning and early occurrences

6th Sep 2021.Reading time 11 minutes.

1804—used to express resignation regarding an undesirable aspect of the behaviour of a girl or young woman, as being supposedly characteristic of her age or sex

‘boys will be boys’: meaning and early occurrences

5th Sep 2021.Reading time 6 minutes.

1721—used to express resignation regarding an undesirable aspect of the behaviour of a boy or young man, as being supposedly characteristic of his age or sex

‘green thumb’: meaning and origin

3rd Sep 2021.Reading time 13 minutes.

British, 1907—denotes considerable talent or ability to grow plants—in this phrase, the adjective ‘green’ refers to the colour of growing vegetation—1921: ‘green-thumbed’ (adjective)

‘green fingers’: meaning and origin

2nd Sep 2021.Reading time 7 minutes.

British, 1906—denotes considerable talent or ability to grow plants—in this phrase, the adjective ‘green’ refers to the colour of growing vegetation—1914: ‘green-fingered’ (adjective)

‘to trail one’s coat’: meaning and origin

26th Aug 2021.Reading time 14 minutes.

UK, 1837—to go out of one’s way to start a quarrel or a fight—refers to the Irish practice of dragging one’s coat behind one in the expectation that somebody will, intentionally or unintentionally, step on it and provide the pretext needed for a quarrel or a fight