‘the oldest trick in the book’: meaning and origin
a ruse or stratagem that is still effective although it has been used for a long time—USA, 1929—seems to have originated in sports
Read More‘town and gown’: meaning and origin
1750—the non-academic inhabitants (‘town’) of a university city and the resident members of the university (‘gown’, denoting the distinctive costume of a member of a university)
Read More‘tinfoil hat’ (used in relation to protection)
alludes to the belief that such a hat or cap protects the wearer from mind control, surveillance or similar types of threat—USA, 1972 as ‘tinfoil-lined hat’
Read More‘pipsqueak’: meanings and origin
a person or thing that is insignificant or contemptible—1910—originally (1900): a type of small high-velocity shell, with reference to the high-pitched sound of its discharge and flight
Read More‘blouson noir’: meaning and origin
in French contexts: a young person, especially a young man, belonging to a youth subculture of the 1950s and 1960s—UK, 1959—from the noun ‘blouson’ (a short jacket) and the adjective ‘noir’ (black)
Read More‘to throw someone under the bus’: meaning and origin
to abandon or betray someone in order to protect or advance one’s own interests—originally (British politics, 1971) ‘to push someone under a bus’—derived from ‘to walk under a bus’ (British politics, 1966)
Read More‘few and far between’: meanings and origin
scarce; infrequent; difficult to find or to come by—one early use in 1668—but popularised by the Irish author Thomas Campbell in The Pleasures of Hope (1799)
Read More‘in full fig’: meaning and origin
smartly dressed—from the verb ‘fig out/up’, meaning ‘to smarten up’—this verb is probably an alteration of the verb ‘feague’, of uncertain origin, meaning ‘to make (a horse) lively’
Read More‘to rain pitchforks (with their points downwards)’: meaning and origin
to rain very heavily—UK, 1820—sometimes appended to the phrase ‘to rain cats and dogs’
Read More‘to rush in where angels fear to tread’: meaning and origin
to embark enthusiastically on a course of action that most sensible people would avoid—coined as ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ by the English poet Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism (1711)
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