“ad fontes!”
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
Read Morecolloquial, Australia, 1910—‘the night’s (only) a pup’, or ‘the day’s (only) a pup’, means the night, or the day, is young—refers to ‘pup’ in the sense of a young dog
Read MoreAustralia, 1951—used of someone who has departed and left no indication of their present whereabouts—purportedly from the story of one Malley, who was told by his boss to hold a cow; on the boss’s return, the cow had disappeared, and Malley said “She’s a goner!”
Read MoreAustralia, 1960—very fit and well, in robust health—the image is of a bull strengthened by his living in one of the semi-desert areas of Australia in which the principal vegetation is mallee, i.e., low-growing bushy eucalyptus
Read Morea representation of the letter A in scarlet cloth which Hester Prynne is condemned to wear in The Scarlet Letter (1850), by Nathaniel Hawthorne—soon came to be used figuratively in the sense of a stigma, a mark of infamy
Read Moremilitary slang, derisive—of military medals and decorations: to be awarded automatically, without regard to merit—coined during the First World War
Read Morethe name of a decree issued in Nazi Germany in December 1941, under which individuals suspected of resistance or other underground activities were arrested and deported suddenly and without trace, frequently during the night—by extension: any situation, event, etc., characterised by mystery, obscurity or secrecy
Read MoreSince the mid-20th century, with reference to garden tea parties, the phrase ‘cucumber sandwiches on the lawn’ and its variants have been used to characterise traditional Englishness.
Read Moremeans that, if one is unaware of an unpleasant fact or situation, one cannot be troubled by it—coined by the English poet Thomas Gray in An Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, first published in 1747
Read MoreUK—1879 “where the monkey put the shells”—1892 “where the monkey put the nuts”—with reference to the anus, this slang phrase expresses contemptuous rejection
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