‘bimbette’: meaning and origin

4th Apr 2022.Reading time 5 minutes.

USA, 1978—a young woman or teenage girl who is regarded as sexually attractive, but unintelligent or frivolous—from ‘bimbo’ and the suffix ‘-ette’

‘Vatican roulette’: meaning and origin

2nd Apr 2022.Reading time 8 minutes.

USA, 1957—the rhythm method of birth control, as permitted by the Roman Catholic Church—with allusion to the unpredictable efficacy of this contraceptive method: from ‘Vatican’, denoting the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and ‘Russian roulette’

‘Taffia’: meaning and origin

1st Apr 2022.Reading time 6 minutes.

UK, 1974—applied jocularly to any supposed network of prominent or influential Welsh people, especially one which is strongly nationalistic—a blend of ‘Taffy’, denoting a Welshman, and ‘Mafia’

‘short-arm inspection’: meaning and origin

31st Mar 2022.Reading time 8 minutes.

USA, 1917—originally and chiefly military slang—an inspection of the penis for venereal disease or other infection—the image is of the penis as an additional, but shorter, limb

‘Irishman’s rise’: meaning and origin

30th Mar 2022.Reading time 9 minutes.

UK, 1847—a fall in value, especially a reduction in wages—one of several expressions denoting the opposite in meaning of the noun qualified by the genitive case of ‘Irishman’—for example: ‘Irishman’s promotion’ (a demotion) and ‘Irishman’s hurricane’ (nautical: a flat calm)

‘unshirted hell’: meaning and origin

29th Mar 2022.Reading time 7 minutes.

‘serious trouble’—USA, 1866—from the image of taking off one’s shirt before getting into a fight, and from ‘hell’ in the sense of ‘a severe reprimand’, as in ‘to give someone hell’

‘gobsmacked’: meaning and origin

27th Mar 2022.Reading time 9 minutes.

‘flabbergasted’, ‘astounded’—1925, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, north-eastern England—in reference to the shock effect of being struck in the mouth, from the noun ‘gob’, denoting ‘the mouth’, and the adjective ‘smacked’, meaning ‘struck’

‘caught in the headlights’: meanings and origin

26th Mar 2022.Reading time 12 minutes.

used of a person who is frozen with fright or surprise, or is trying to flee, as a result of suddenly becoming the focus of attention—alludes to the habit of deer and rabbits of stopping still when dazzled by the headlights of a motor vehicle, or of running away within the headlight beam

‘like the back (end) of a bus’: meaning and origin

25th Mar 2022.Reading time 8 minutes.

UK, 1934—used of a person regarded as physically unattractive or sexually undesirable

‘femiphobia’ & ‘feminophobia’: meaning and origin

23rd Mar 2022.Reading time 14 minutes.

‘femiphobia’ (USA) 1907—‘feminophobia’ (UK) 1914—an irrational fear or dislike of women—from Latin ‘fēmina’ (woman) and combining form ‘-phobia’—probably each coined on various occasions by different persons, independently from each other