“ad fontes!”
USA, 1888—used as a way of telling someone that they will have to accept a situation they do not like because they have no choice—the noun ‘titty’ denotes a teat, and, in the phrase, the image is of sucking a tough teat
Read MoreUK, 1872—meaning: ‘it would be good if something (stated or implied) were true or likely, but it is not’
Read Moreto do or say something which causes trouble, controversy or upset—first occurs (1841 & 1843, Yorkshire, northern England) in quotation marks, which indicates that it was already in common usage
Read Morecompromising information collected for use in blackmailing, discrediting or manipulating a person, group, etc.—borrowed from Russian (Soviet secret police) ‘kompromat’, from ‘kompro-’ in ‘komprometirujuščij’, meaning ‘compromising’, and ‘mat-’ in ‘material’, meaning ‘material’
Read More
UK, 1860—the morning after an evening of drinking, when one has a hangover—in extended use: the morning after any night of excessive revelry
Read MoreAustralian soldiers’ slang, 1917—literally: to fall heavily; figuratively: to suffer a failure or defeat—‘gutser’ (Scotland, 1901): originally denoted a belly flop—derived from ‘gut’ in the sense of the belly
Read More1922, slang of high-school and university students in Kansas City (Missouri) and in Kansas: a fashionable young man who enjoys socialising with women at tea parties or other social events—1924: a diplomat employed by the U.S. State Department, regarded as being excessively occupied with entertaining dignitaries and doing little meaningful work
Read Moremeaning: ‘what is appropriate in one case is also appropriate in the other case in question’—earliest occurrence in A Collection of English Proverbs (1670), by John Ray
Read MoreThe noun ‘hardy annual’ denotes a plant that can withstand freezing temperatures and which completes its life cycle within a year. In British English, this noun is used figuratively of a thing or a person that reappears continually or at regular intervals.
Read Moreearly 18th century—‘to anticipate unduly’, in particular, ‘to spend one’s revenue before it comes in’
Read More
