‘(as) cold as Pharaoh’s heart’: meaning and origin
USA, 1876—‘extremely cold’—cf. ‘as hard as Pharaoh’s heart’ (USA, 1829), meaning ‘extremely hard’—both phrases refer to the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in the Book of Exodus, 7:13-22
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‘earworm’: meanings and origin
USA, 1982—a catchy song or melody that keeps repeating in one’s mind, especially to the point of irritation—loan translation from German ‘Ohrwurm’—original meaning (1598): an earwig
Read More‘(as) sure as God made little apples’: meaning and origin
UK, 1796—meaning: ‘certainly’, ‘definitely’; ‘without a doubt’—US variant, 1893: ‘(as) sure as God made (little) green apples’
Read More‘a cold day in July’ | ‘a cold day in hell’
USA—‘a cold day in July’ 1881—‘a cold day in hell’ 1906—those phrases refer to an impossibly distant time or to an extremely unlikely scenario
Read More‘royal we’: meaning and origin
UK, 1821—‘we’ used in place of ‘I’ by a monarch or other person in power, also (frequently humorously) by any individual—originated as a loan translation from French ‘nous royal’, as used of Napoléon Bonaparte by Madame de Staël in her memoirs published in 1821
Read More‘(as) game as Ned Kelly’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1907—very spirited or brave—refers to the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly (1855-1880), leader of a band of horse and cattle thieves and bank raiders operating in Victoria, who was eventually hanged in Melbourne
Read More‘giggle-house’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1919—a psychiatric asylum—seems to have originated in the slang of the armed forces during the First World War
Read More‘all over the place like a mad woman’s [+ noun]’
Australia, 1932—a humorous extension of ‘all over the place’, which means: (literally) everywhere, in every direction, widely scattered; (figuratively) in a confused or disorganised state
Read More‘a grape on the business’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1939—someone whose presence spoils things for others; an odd person out—of unknown origin—perhaps a variant of ‘gooseberry’, as in ‘to play gooseberry’—perhaps an alteration of ‘gripe’—perhaps related in some respect to ‘sour grapes’
Read More‘to jump one’s horse over the bar’: meaning and origin
The obsolete Australian-English phrase to jump one’s horse over the bar, and its variants, meant to sell a horse for liquor. The following definition is from an unpublished manuscript entitled Materials for a dictionary of Australian Slang, collected from 1900 to 1910, by Alfred George Stephens and S. J. O’Brien—as quoted by Gerald Alfred Wilkes (1927-2020) in A […]
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