‘to lose the dressing room’: meaning and origin
1993—Used of the coach or manager of a soccer team, the British- and Irish-English phrase ‘to lose the dressing room’ means to lose the players’ respect.
Read MoreCategory: United Kingdom & Ireland
‘duvet day’: meaning and origin
UK, 1996—an unscheduled extra day’s leave from work, taken to alleviate stress or pressure and sanctioned by one’s employer
Read More‘handbags at ten paces’: meaning and origin
UK, 1978—(soccer players) a confrontation that does not lead to serious fighting—based on the cliché ‘pistols at ten paces’—the substitution of ‘pistols’ with ‘handbags’, which evokes women fighting with their handbags, expresses the histrionic character of the confrontation
Read More‘frogspawn’ (tapioca pudding)
UK, 1921—‘frogspawn’: a jocular appellation for ‘tapioca pudding’ (also for ‘sago pudding’)—originated in schoolchildren’s slang—refers to the fact that both tapioca pudding and sago pudding very much resemble frogspawn, i.e., a soft substance like jelly which contains the eggs of a frog
Read More‘soft Mick’: meaning and origin
Lancashire, England, 1939—used in similative and comparative phrases such as ‘as —— as soft Mick’ and ‘more —— than soft Mick’, the noun ‘soft Mick’ (also ‘Soft Mick’) indicates a great quantity or degree
Read More‘as scarce as rocking-horse manure’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1937—very scarce—‘rocking horse’: a toy horse mounted on rockers or springs for a child to sit on and rock to and fro—this phrase has come to be also used in British English and American English
Read More‘were you born in a sawmill?’ | ‘were you born in a barn?’
USA, late 19th century—these phrases a) express mild remonstrance towards a person who has left a door open, exposing others to a draft; b) indicate that a person is behaving in a rude or uncouth manner
Read More‘sly grog’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1825—liquor sold without a licence—here, the adjective ‘sly’ means ‘secret’, ‘covert’, ‘clandestine’
Read More‘to talk through (the back of) one’s neck’
1890s—to use extravagant words or language not substantiated by fact; to talk nonsense—occurs in particular in stories by the British authors Ernest William Hornung (1866-1921) and Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975)
Read More‘false dawn’: meanings and origin
1809—a transient light preceding the true dawn by about an hour, a phenomenon common in Eastern countries—translates Arabic ‘ṣubḥ kāḏib’—figuratively: a hopeful sign that can prove either illusory or authentic
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