‘until hell freezes over’: meaning and origin
USA, 1832—for an extremely long time or forever
Read MoreCategory: public affairs
‘wood-and-water joey’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1847—an odd-job man—‘wood-and-water’ alludes to the phrase ‘hewer of wood and drawer of water’, designating a labourer of the lowest kind—‘joey’ is perhaps the noun denoting a young kangaroo, and by extension anything young or small
Read More‘hewer of wood and drawer of water’: meaning and origin
1727—a labourer of the lowest kind—refers to the enslavement of the Gibeonites by the Israelites in the Book of Joshua, 9:21-27, as it occurs in the King James Bible (1611)
Read Morea disparaging term: ‘Corbynista’
UK, 2015—(depreciative) a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2015 to 2020—coined after nouns such as ‘Sandinista’—intended to liken Corbyn’s supporters at best to radical socialists and at worst to cultists
Read More‘porky’ (rhyming slang for ‘lie’)
In British English, the noun ‘porky’ (also ‘porkie’) is short for ‘porky pie’ (also ‘porkie pie’), which is an alteration of ‘pork pie’, rhyming slang for the noun ‘lie’.
Read Moreattributive use of ‘postcode’
UK, 1993—meaning: influenced or determined by a person’s locality or postal address—in phrases such as ‘postcode discrimination’—frequently with reference to the unequal provision of healthcare
Read More‘omnishambles’: meaning and origin
a situation that has been completely mismanaged—from ‘omni-’ and ‘shambles’—coined by Tony Roche in the British television series The Thick of It (3rd series, episode 1, 24 October 2009)
Read More‘to drink the Kool-Aid’: meanings and origin
USA, 1978—to commit suicide; to demonstrate unquestioning obedience or loyalty—alludes to a mass suicide, in 1978, by members of the Peoples’ Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, who drank a cyanide-laced drink thought to be similar to Kool-Aid
Read More‘Mr. Plod’: meaning and origin
UK, 1963—‘Mr. Plod’, also ‘P.C. Plod’, ‘Plod’: a humorous or mildly derogatory appellation for a policeman or for the police—alludes to ‘Mr. Plod’, the name of the policeman in stories by the English author of children’s fiction Enid Blyton
Read More‘Dutching’: meaning and origin
UK, 1989—the practice of sending food destined for the British market for irradiation in a country, typically the Netherlands, where this process is permitted, in order to mask any bacterial contamination before it is put on sale—from ‘Dutch’ and the suffix ‘-ing’, forming nouns denoting an action
Read More
word histories 