“ad fontes!”
a movement, developed in the U.S.S.R. in 1935, aimed at encouraging hard work and maximum output, following the example of Alexei Stakhanov—by extension: exceptionally productive work, excessively intensive work
Read Morelate 19th century—to disappear suddenly without leaving information about one’s whereabouts—from conjuring, in which ‘vanishing act’ designates an act of making a person or thing disappear as if by magic, and an act of disappearing in this manner
Read Morethe slightest concession will be unscrupulously exploited—USA, 1837, in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s diary—a later form of ‘give someone an inch and they’ll take an ell’
Read More‘one might hear a pin drop’ (UK, 1739): the silence and sense of expectation are intense—‘one can hear a pin drop’ (UK, 1737): one has a keen sense of hearing
Read More
UK, 1981—a pair of spectacles with an oversized frame of a style that was fashionable in the 1980s—refers to the spectacles worn by Deirdre Barlow, a fictional character in the soap opera Coronation Street
Read MoreAustralia, 1943—a foolish or silly person—from the synonymous noun ‘dill’ (1933), itself apparently a back-formation from the adjective ‘dilly’, meaning ‘foolish’, ‘silly’
Read More
France—1883: Viennese-style baked goods—1887: a bakery that makes and sells this type of baked goods—those baked goods were introduced into France in 1839 by the Austrian entrepreneur August Zang
Read MoreUK, 1809—a person who predicts disaster, a doomsayer—also: a person who is (especially unduly) pessimistic about the future
Read Moreone of the German air raids in 1942 on places of cultural and historical importance in Britain—from ‘Baedeker’: any of a series of guidebooks to foreign countries, issued by the German publisher Karl Baedeker (1801-1859) and his successors
Read More16th century: a plant of the most familiar or frequently occurring kind, especially one that is cultivated—hence, figuratively, 19th century: something ordinary or usual for its type
Read More
word histories 