‘hewer of wood and drawer of water’: meaning and origin
1727—a labourer of the lowest kind—refers to the enslavement of the Gibeonites by the Israelites in the Book of Joshua, 9:21-27, as it occurs in the King James Bible (1611)
Read MoreCategory: United Kingdom & Ireland
a disparaging term: ‘Corbynista’
UK, 2015—(depreciative) a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2015 to 2020—coined after nouns such as ‘Sandinista’—intended to liken Corbyn’s supporters at best to radical socialists and at worst to cultists
Read More‘Madchester’: meaning and origin
UK, 1989—refers to Manchester, in north-western England, as a centre of popular music and club subculture in Britain in the late 1980s and early 1990s—blend of ‘mad’ and ‘Manchester’
Read More‘porky’ (rhyming slang for ‘lie’)
In British English, the noun ‘porky’ (also ‘porkie’) is short for ‘porky pie’ (also ‘porkie pie’), which is an alteration of ‘pork pie’, rhyming slang for the noun ‘lie’.
Read Moreattributive use of ‘postcode’
UK, 1993—meaning: influenced or determined by a person’s locality or postal address—in phrases such as ‘postcode discrimination’—frequently with reference to the unequal provision of healthcare
Read More‘tiswas’: meaning and origin
UK, 1938—a state of nervous agitation or confusion; also, occasionally: a state of physical disorder or chaos—of unknown origin; perhaps a fanciful variant of the synonymous noun ‘tizz’
Read More‘not to be able to [verb] for toffee’: meaning and origin
UK, 1886—to be incompetent at performing the action denoted by the verb—the underlying notion is presumably of failing to win even the smallest prize
Read More‘omnishambles’: meaning and origin
a situation that has been completely mismanaged—from ‘omni-’ and ‘shambles’—coined by Tony Roche in the British television series The Thick of It (3rd series, episode 1, 24 October 2009)
Read More‘Mr. Plod’: meaning and origin
UK, 1963—‘Mr. Plod’, also ‘P.C. Plod’, ‘Plod’: a humorous or mildly derogatory appellation for a policeman or for the police—alludes to ‘Mr. Plod’, the name of the policeman in stories by the English author of children’s fiction Enid Blyton
Read More‘Dutching’: meaning and origin
UK, 1989—the practice of sending food destined for the British market for irradiation in a country, typically the Netherlands, where this process is permitted, in order to mask any bacterial contamination before it is put on sale—from ‘Dutch’ and the suffix ‘-ing’, forming nouns denoting an action
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word histories 