“ad fontes!”
literally, of a jockey in horseracing (USA, 1869): to manoeuvre in order to get one’s horse into a desired position at the beginning of a race—figuratively (USA, 1881): to manoeuvre in order to gain advantage over rivals in a competitive situation
Read MoreUK & Ireland—a shop that sells a wide range of goods at low prices, typically one pound or less—hence also: of the type or quality found in a pound shop, cheap, second-rate
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1990—a street in which many satellite dishes are attached to the front of the buildings—‘satellite dish’: a bowl-shaped antenna used to view satellite television
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Ireland & Britain, 1850—a person who goes round the streets in the early morning to awaken factory hands—from ‘to knock somebody up’, meaning ‘to awaken somebody by knocking at the door’
Read More‘extremely poor’—USA, 1810—humorous variant of ‘(as) poor as Job’, from the name of the eponymous protagonist of a book of the Old Testament, taken as the type of extreme poverty
Read Morethe systematic destruction of Palestinian education by Israel—apparently coined in 2009 by Karma Nabulsi, Fellow in Politics at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
Read MoreUK, 1950, as ‘old boy net’—a system of favouritism and preferment operating among people of a similar social, usually privileged, background, especially among former pupils of public schools
Read Morea person whose career is believed to have been advanced by having a famous or successful relative—‘nepotism baby’ (USA, 1915)—‘nepo baby’ (USA, 2022)
Read MoreIreland, 1989—treatment given to hospital patients in overcrowded and inappropriate spaces such as corridors and waiting rooms—had been used earlier (UK, 1980) of treatment given to schoolchildren
Read MoreUSA, 1945—‘Kleenex’ (a proprietary name for a soft, disposable paper tissue) is used in similes expressing, in particular, disposability, ephemerality, fragility, weakness
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word histories 