‘cupboard love’: meaning and origin
love or affection insincerely professed or displayed as a means of gaining a benefit or advantage—circa 1665—the image is of love given in return for food from a cupboard
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‘nincompoopiana’: meaning and origin
the affected dandyism of the writers, artists, etc., associated with the aesthetic movement, which advocated a doctrine of ‘art for art’s sake’—UK, 1879—coined by George Du Maurier in cartoons published in Punch
Read More‘to clutch the pearls’: meaning and origin
to react with shock or dismay, especially in response to something considered immoral, underhand or vulgar—USA, 1990—from an episode of the sketch-comedy television series In Living Color, broadcast on 15th April 1990
Read More‘Roman holiday’: meaning and origin
an occasion on which enjoyment or profit is derived from the suffering or discomfiture of others—UK, 1836—alludes to the description of a gladiator dying in a Roman arena in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1818), by Byron
Read More‘to drive pigs (to market)’: meaning and origin
to snore—UK, 1828—this phrase likens a person’s snoring to the sound made by a herd of pigs
Read More‘please the pigs’: meaning and early occurrences
meaning: if circumstances permit, if all is well—first recorded in 1683—of unknown origin
Read More‘food for powder’: meaning and origin
soldiers, especially low-ranking recruits, collectively regarded as expendable in war—UK, 1740—coined by William Shakespeare in Henry IV, Part 1 (1598)
Read More‘godwottery’: meanings and origin
gardening or garden design in an affected, fussily decorative or over-elaborate style; archaic and affected language—UK, 1931—alludes to “A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!”, in My Garden (1893), by the Manx poet T. E. Brown
Read More‘hot-arsed’: meaning and origin
slang—(used especially of women) lustful; sexually aroused or arousing—first recorded in The Confession of the New Married Couple (London, 1683)
Read More‘autumn-spring’: meanings and origin
a period of warm, springlike weather occurring in the autumn—hence, figuratively, a late period of youthfulness—first used from 1639 onwards by the Anglican clergyman and historian Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)
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