meaning and origin of the phrase ‘gas and gaiters’
coined by Charles Dickens in Nicholas Nickleby (1839) in a comic passage in which an insane speaker makes a series of nonsensical statements
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the various meanings of the noun ‘owlhoot’
Coined after ‘cock-crow’, ‘owl-hoot’ means ‘dusk’. It denotes ‘an outlaw’ in Wild West fiction, hence, generally, ‘a worthless or contemptible person’.
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘to have bats in one’s belfry’
Of American-English origin, ‘to have bats in one’s belfry’ is from the image of bats flying around when disturbed, like confused thoughts in a disordered mind.
Read Moreorigin of ‘slave’ and ‘Slav’, of ‘robot’ and of ‘ciao’
The word ‘slave’ is from Medieval Latin ‘Sclavus’, ‘Slav’, because the Slavic peoples were frequently reduced to a servile condition by the Germanic conquest.
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘by hook or by crook’
The phrase perhaps originated in laws or customs regulating the gathering of firewood by tenants; it was perhaps a legal formula in which ‘crook’ merely reinforced ‘hook’.
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘to send to Coventry’
probable origin: in 1642, during the English Civil War, Royalists had been captured at Birmingham and sent to Coventry, which was a Parliamentarian stronghold.
Read More‘Kindertransport’ (evacuation of children from Nazi-controlled Europe)
Kindertransport (from German ‘Kinder’, children): operation from 1938 to 1940 to evacuate (mostly Jewish) children from Nazi-controlled areas of Europe to the UK
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘hung’ in ‘hung parliament’
In ‘hung parliament’, ‘hung’ means ‘in which no political party has an overall majority’ – cf. the US expression ‘hung jury’, where ‘hung’ means ‘unable to decide’.
Read Moreorigin and meanings of ‘jingo’
The current sense of ‘jingo’ originated in a 1877 patriotic song adopted by the bellicose factions within the Conservative Party during the Russo-Turkish war.
Read Moreorigin of the adverb ‘cap-a-pie’ (from head to foot)
English ‘cap-a-pie’ is from ‘de cap à pied’, ‘from head to foot’, used in Occitan and in the Middle French of southern France.
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