“ad fontes!”
An expression of indifference to, or resigned acceptance of, a state of affairs, ‘san fairy ann’ jocularly represents the French phrase ‘ça ne fait rien’, meaning ‘that doesn’t matter’. It originated in army use on the Western Front during the First World War.
Read More18th century—origin unknown—perhaps originally imitative and comparable to, or derived from, ‘tantara’, denoting the sound of a trumpet, hence an uproar—or from obsolete French ‘trantran’, synonym of ‘tantara’
Read MoreEtymologically, a jewel is a little game, a little plaything: ‘jewel’ is from a French diminutive of ‘jeu’, meaning ‘a game’, ‘a play’. The word ‘bijou’ is from Breton ‘bizou’, meaning ‘a finger-ring’, from ‘biz’, ‘finger’.
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The name ‘Indian summer’ (late 18th century) reflected the fact that to the Europeans living in the New World, this was a newly-discovered local phenomenon. But similar phenomena were already known in the Old World by various names.
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The verb ‘elope’ now means ‘to run away secretly in order to get married’, but it originated in Anglo-Norman as a legal term meaning, of a wife, ‘to run away from her husband with a paramour’.
Read More‘queen’s’, or ‘king’s’, ‘cushion’: a seat made by two people who cross arms and hold each other’s hands to form a support for another person—Scotland and northern England, 19th century
Read MoreFrom the 17th century onwards, Grub Street, in Moorgate, London, was inhabited by literary hacks.
Read MoreUK, early 19th century—an imaginary street where people in difficulties, now especially financial ones, are supposed to reside—urban counterpart of ‘Dicky’s meadow’
Read MoreThe various phrases containing the word ‘mustard’ are based on the image of something which adds heat or pungency.
Read More19th century—The adverb ‘hands down’ originated in horse racing: a jockey who is winning comfortably is able to lower his hands and relax his hold on the reins.
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