the British phrase ‘to talk the hind leg off a donkey’
1808, as ‘to talk a horse’s hind leg off’—‘[animal’s] hind leg off’ is probably a hyperbolic extension of ‘to talk’, emphasising the speaker’s persistence or eloquence
Read Morethe British phrase ‘to throw a spanner in(to) the works’
British, 1925—‘to throw a spanner in(to) the works’: to cause disruption, to interfere with the smooth running of something—synonym (American English): ‘to throw a monkey wrench into’
Read Moreorigin of ‘throw a monkey wrench into’: threshing machines
The original image was of throwing a monkey wrench into the cylinder of a threshing machine, and was exclusively applied to political situations—USA, late 19th century.
Read MoreHow ‘lion’ came to denote a celebrity.
‘lion’: a person of note or celebrity who is much sought after—from ‘lions’: things of note, celebrity, or curiosity in a town, etc.—from the practice of taking visitors to see the lions which used to be kept in the Tower of London
Read Moreorigin of ‘the lion’s share’: ‘le partage du lion’
‘the lion’s share’ (UK, 1790)—calque of French ‘le partage du lion’ (now ‘la part du lion’)—from ‘The Heifer, the She-Goat, and the Ewe, in partnership with the Lion’, a fable by Jean de La Fontaine (1621-95)
Read More‘to go to hell – or to heaven – in a handbasket’
‘hell in a handbasket’ (1841), ‘heaven in a handbasket’ (1834) in Irish contexts—‘handbasket’ chosen for alliteration with ‘hell’—‘to go to hell in a handbasket’ meant ‘to go to hell’—‘to go to heaven in a handbasket’ meant ‘to go to heaven’ or ‘to go to hell’
Read Morethe phrase ‘a snowball’s chance (in hell)’
‘a snowball’s chance in hell’: no chance at all (USA, 1880)—elliptically, ‘a snowball’s chance’ (USA, 1895)—in the 1880s, ‘a snowball in hell’ was also used as a term of comparison to denote something that disappears rapidly
Read Morethe authentic—and simple—origin of ‘sleep tight’
In the phrase ‘sleep tight’ (USA, 1873), the adjective ‘tight’ is used as an adverb meaning ‘soundly’, i.e. ‘deeply and without disturbance’, as in the combination ‘tight asleep’ (USA, 1847).
Read MoreThe phrase ‘the sky’s the limit’ originated in poker.
meaning: ‘there is nothing to prevent someone or something from being successful’—from a late-19th-century metaphor specifically used of poker games with ‘a sky-high limit’ on stakes
Read Morethe informal British phrase ‘(as) sick as a parrot’
meaning: ‘thoroughly dejected or disappointed’—appeared (1973) in Tyne and Wear (north-eastern England)—originated apparently in football parlance, in which it soon became a cliché
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word histories 