origin of the phrase ‘good wine needs no bush’
first recorded in ‘As You Like It’, by Shakespeare—from the former practice of hanging a branch or bunch of ivy as a vintner’s sign in front of a tavern
Read MoreCategory: religion
origin of ‘cloud-cuckoo-land’
a realm of fantasy, dreams or impractical notions—1856 as ‘cuckoo-cloud-land’—from the name of the city built by the birds in ‘The Birds’, by Aristophanes
Read Morethe liturgical origin of ‘Quasimodo’
in full ‘Quasimodo Sunday’: the Sunday after Easter—from the opening words of the Latin introit for that day, ‘quasimodo geniti infantes’, ‘as newborn babies’
Read Moreoriginal meaning of ‘cretin’: ‘Christian’, ‘human being’
Swiss-French ‘crestin’ (= ‘Christian’): in certain valleys of the Alps, a mentally deficient, deformed person suffering from a congenital thyroid deficiency
Read More‘ladybird’: the Virgin Mary’s beetle
The ladybird was so named on account of its seven spots, which were popularly believed to symbolise the seven sorrows of the Virgin Mary.
Read Morethe creation of the word ‘folklore’
The word ‘folklore’ was coined in 1846 by the British author William John Thoms, inspired by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s anthology of German fairy tales.
Read Morethe uncertain biblical meaning of ‘by the skin of one’s teeth’
from Job, 19:20—this verse, and particularly the Hebrew verb form immediately preceding ‘bĕʿōr šinnāi’ (‘with the skin of my teeth’), are of uncertain meaning
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘forty winks’
early 19th century—probably a jocular application of ‘forty’ as an indefinite term for a large number—‘wink’ in the sense of ‘a closing of the eyes for sleep’
Read More‘jot’ and ‘tittle’ used in collocation
‘every tiny detail’—from Matthew, 5:18—‘jot’, from ‘iōta’, the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet—‘tittle’, a small mark used in writing or printing
Read Moreorigin of ‘to don’ and ‘to doff’
coalesced forms of the obsolete phrasal verbs ‘to do on’ and ‘to do off’, meaning respectively ‘to put on’ and ‘to take off’ (an item of clothing)
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word histories 