‘to play a good knife and fork’: meaning and early occurrences
to eat heartily—first occurs in Augusta Triumphans: Or, The Way to make London the most flourishing City in the Universe (1728), by Daniel Defoe
Read MoreCategory: United Kingdom & Ireland
‘Glasgow kiss’: meaning and origin
UK, 1982—denotes a headbutt—alludes to the reputation for violence accorded to some parts of Glasgow, a city in west-central Scotland
Read More‘dry as a Pommy’s towel’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1981—very dry—alludes to the alleged poor personal hygiene of the British—here, the Australian noun ‘Pommy’ designates a British person
Read More‘rose-coloured spectacles’: meaning and origin
UK, 1830—a happy or positive attitude that fails to notice negative things, leading to a view of life that is not realistic
Read More‘to beat Banagher’: meaning and origin
to surpass everything—Ireland, 1821—probably refers to a strong military fort at Banagher, a town in County Offaly, in the province of Leinster, Ireland
Read More‘the clean potato’: meaning and origin
the very, the real, or the proper person or thing—1830—of Scottish or Irish origin—perhaps an extended form of the synonymous phrase ‘the potato’
Read More‘nuppence’: meaning and origin
no money, nothing—UK, 1864, in a text by the British scholar D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson—from ‘n-’ in the determiner ‘no’, meaning ‘not any’, and ‘-uppence’ in ‘tuppence’
Read More‘squeeze pidgin’: meaning and origin
China, 1849—extortion—from ‘squeeze’, denoting a forced exaction or impost made by a Chinese official or servant, and ‘pidgin’ in its original sense of business
Read More‘pan-loafy’: meaning and origin
Scotland, 1941—of a person, manner of speaking, etc.: affectedly refined or cultivated, pretentious—from the fact that a pan-loaf (i.e., a loaf baked in a pan or tin, having a hard, smooth crust), being more expensive than a plain loaf, was considered a sign of affluence
Read More‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’
UK, 1857—This phrase was originally used by children to express or encourage an attitude of indifference to taunts, insults or other verbal abuse.
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