“ad fontes!”
The word teetotum, which dates back to the 18th century, denotes a small four-sided disk or die having an initial letter inscribed on each of its sides, and a spindle passing down through it by which it could be twirled or spun with the fingers like a small top, the letter which lay uppermost, when […]
Read MoreThe phrase to sleep like a top means to sleep very soundly. In A Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1993), B. A. Phythian explains that, unlikely as it may seem, the top referred to here is the child’s toy which seems not to be moving when it is spinning, though it wobbles when being […]
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from Keeping Up With The Joneses (Cupples & Leon Company – New York, 1920) by ‘Pop’ Momand MEANING If you say that someone is keeping up with the Joneses, you mean that they are doing something in order to show that they have as much money as other people, rather than because […]
Read Morean alternative explanation of the phrase “it is raining cats and dogs”
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘strawberry preacher’
Read MoreIn the phrase ‘in Dicky’s meadow’, which means ‘in trouble’, the first element is an alteration of ‘dicky’, meaning ‘hazardous’, ‘critical’.
Read MoreSexual puns in 17th-century English theatre explain several meanings of ‘P’s and Q’s’.
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word histories 