“ad fontes!”
means that the place with which one has the strongest emotional connection is the place that one regards as home—first occurred in October 1828, in an unsigned poem published in The Winter’s Wreath, an annual published in London
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1757, as a loan translation of German ‘Eiserne Jungfer’ (German text published in 1740)—1837, as a loan translation of German ‘Eiserne Jungfrau’—an instrument of torture, supposedly used during the Middle Ages, consisting of an upright coffin-shaped box lined with iron spikes, into which the victim is shut
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Australia, 1998—a pair of short, tight-fitting men’s swimming trunks—refers to the appearance of the male genitals in figure-hugging trunks—‘budgie’: colloquial abbreviation of ‘budgerigar’, denoting a small Australian parrot
Read Moreused of a buck-toothed person—USA, 1933, as ‘can eat an apple through a picket fence’—USA, 1950, as ‘can eat an apple through a tennis racquet’—UK, 1979, as ‘can eat an apple through a letter box’
Read MoreUK, 1806—very rapidly and thoroughly—refers to a dose of aperient salts—has come to be also used in the extended form ‘like a dose of salts through + noun’
Read MoreUSA, 1987—a joke of the type said to be told by fathers, i.e., a hackneyed, embarrassing or unoriginal joke
Read MoreUK, 1996—an awkward, unfashionable or unrestrained style of dancing to pop music, as characteristically performed by middle-aged or older men
Read MoreUK, 1830—In ‘eligible bachelor’, the adjective ‘eligible’ means ‘suitable as a partner in marriage’.
Read MoreUSA, 1956—to recreate something that already exists, especially at the expense of unnecessary time and effort; to repeat effort needlessly
Read More‘red rag’—a piece of red cloth used to provoke an animal—hence, figuratively, a source of provocation or annoyance, something which excites violent indignation—the notion occurs in the late 16th century
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word histories 