‘knocker-up’ (a wakener-up)
Ireland & Britain, 1850—a person who goes round the streets in the early morning to awaken factory hands—from ‘to knock somebody up’, meaning ‘to awaken somebody by knocking at the door’
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‘Job’s comforter’: meaning and origin
1673—a person who aggravates distress under the guise of administering comfort—alludes to Job’s reply to his friends in the Book of Job, 16:2
Read More‘(as) poor as Job’s cat’: meaning and origin
‘extremely poor’—USA, 1810—humorous variant of ‘(as) poor as Job’, from the name of the eponymous protagonist of a book of the Old Testament, taken as the type of extreme poverty
Read More‘(as) poor as Job’s turkey’: meaning and origin
‘extremely poor’—USA, 1817—humorous variant of ‘(as) poor as Job’, from the name of the eponymous protagonist of a book of the Old Testament, taken as the type of extreme poverty
Read More‘scholasticide’: meaning and origin
the systematic destruction of Palestinian education by Israel—apparently coined in 2009 by Karma Nabulsi, Fellow in Politics at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
Read More‘old boy network’: meaning and origin
UK, 1950, as ‘old boy net’—a system of favouritism and preferment operating among people of a similar social, usually privileged, background, especially among former pupils of public schools
Read More‘nepotism baby’ and ‘nepo baby’: meaning and origin
a person whose career is believed to have been advanced by having a famous or successful relative—‘nepotism baby’ (USA, 1915)—‘nepo baby’ (USA, 2022)
Read More‘daffynition’: meaning and origin
a humorous redefinition of an existing word or phrase, presented as a dictionary definition—USA, 1910—a blend of the adjective ‘daffy’ and of the noun ‘definition’
Read More‘jean-age’, ‘jean-ager’ and jean-aged’: meaning and origin
refer to the teenage years regarded as an age at which jeans are often worn—USA, from 1946 onwards—punningly after, respectively, ‘teenage’, ‘teenager’ and ‘teenaged’
Read More‘corridor care’ and ‘corridor nursing’: meaning and origin
Ireland, 1989—treatment given to hospital patients in overcrowded and inappropriate spaces such as corridors and waiting rooms—had been used earlier (UK, 1980) of treatment given to schoolchildren
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