origin of ‘Brownie’ (Girl Scout or Girl Guide)
1916—from ‘brownie’, i.e. a benevolent elf that supposedly haunts houses and does housework secretly—not from the fact that the uniform of the junior Girl Scouts and Girl Guides is brown
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a hypothesis as to the origin of ‘brownie point’
first recorded in the Los Angeles Times (California) of 15 March 1951—possibly from ‘brownie’ in the sense of ‘a benevolent elf that supposedly haunts houses and does housework secretly’
Read Moreorigin of ‘doggy bag’ (to take home leftover food)
USA, 1950s—The noun ‘doggy (or doggie) bag (or pack)’ denotes a bag, provided on request by the management of a restaurant, in which a diner may take home any leftovers; apparently, these leftovers were originally intended for the diner’s pet dog.
Read More‘maelstrom’ (a whirlpool off the west coast of Norway)
late 16th century—from early modern Dutch ‘maelstrom’ (now ‘maalstroom’)—originally a proper name designating a powerful whirlpool in the Arctic Ocean, off the west coast of Norway, which was formerly supposed to suck in and destroy all vessels within a wide radius
Read Moreorigin of ‘to have, or to get, egg on one’s face’
USA, 1946—‘to have, or to get, egg on one’s face’: to be, or to get, embarrassed or humiliated by the turn of events—refers either to having eggs thrown at one’s face or to yolk stains left on the face after the careless eating of a soft-boiled egg
Read Moreorigin of ‘to eat crow’ (to suffer humiliation)
U.S., second half 19th century—from the story (1850) of a man who, having declared that he could eat anything, was challenged to eat crow; the crow he had to eat was seasoned with snuff, so that the man gave up after one bite, saying “I can eat crow, but I’ll be darned if I hanker after it.”
Read Moreorigin of ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’
USA, 1939—‘there is’, or ‘ain’t’, ‘no such thing as a free lunch’: everything inevitably involves a cost of some kind—literal meaning of ‘free lunch’ (first half of the 19th century): a lunch provided free of charge in a bar, saloon, etc., as a means of attracting customers
Read More‘urbi et orbi’ (‘to the city (of Rome) and to the world’)
from classical Latin ‘urbī’, dative of ‘urbs’ (city), and ‘orbī’, dative of ‘orbis’ (orb, circle)—in classical Latin, ‘orbis terrarum’, ‘orbis terrae’, the orb, or circle, of the earth, meant by extension the world, since the ancients regarded the earth as a circular plane or disk
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘canary in the coal mine’
USA, 1964—‘canary in the coal mine’: an early indicator of potential danger or failure—from the former practice of taking live canaries into coal mines to test for the presence of toxic gases, the illness or death of the canaries serving as an indication that such gases were present
Read Morethe shadowy history of the word ‘silhouette’
1763 in French, 1798 in English—from the name of Étienne de Silhouette (1709-67), Controller-General of Finances in 1759—perhaps because he might have invented the portrait in profile obtained by tracing the outline of a head or figure by means of its shadow
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word histories 