‘tough titty’: meaning and origin

6th Mar 2022.Reading time 3 minutes.

USA, 1888—used as a way of telling someone that they will have to accept a situation they do not like because they have no choice—the noun ‘titty’ denotes a teat, and, in the phrase, the image is of sucking a tough teat

‘chance would be a fine thing’: meaning and origin

5th Mar 2022.Reading time 7 minutes.

UK, 1872—meaning: ‘it would be good if something (stated or implied) were true or likely, but it is not’

‘to set the cat among the pigeons’: meaning and origin

3rd Mar 2022.Reading time 15 minutes.

to do or say something which causes trouble, controversy or upset—first occurs (1841 & 1843, Yorkshire, northern England) in quotation marks, which indicates that it was already in common usage

‘kompromat’: meaning and origin

2nd Mar 2022.Reading time 8 minutes.

compromising information collected for use in blackmailing, discrediting or manipulating a person, group, etc.—borrowed from Russian (Soviet secret police) ‘kompromat’, from ‘kompro-’ in ‘komprometirujuščij’, meaning ‘compromising’, and ‘mat-’ in ‘material’, meaning ‘material’

‘Auntie’: The Times (London newspaper) – the BBC

1st Mar 2022.Reading time 13 minutes.

‘Auntie’: familiarly used to denote a publication, an institution, etc., which is considered to be conservative or staid in style or outlook, or, alternatively, which is viewed with affection—especially applied, in Britain, to the London newspaper The Times and to the BBC

‘the morning after the night before’: meanings and early occurrences

28th Feb 2022.Reading time 8 minutes.

UK, 1860—the morning after an evening of drinking, when one has a hangover—in extended use: the morning after any night of excessive revelry

‘(as) snug as [animal name] (in —)’: meaning and early occurrences

27th Feb 2022.Reading time 25 minutes.

1607, as ‘as snug as pigs in pease-straw’—especially in ‘(as) snug as a bug in a rug’, phrases built on the pattern ‘(as) snug as [animal name] (in —)’ mean ‘in an extremely comfortable position or situation’

‘capsize’: meaning, early occurrences and origin

26th Feb 2022.Reading time 13 minutes.

to upset, to overturn—1777—origin unknown—perhaps based on Spanish ‘capuzar’, meaning ‘to sink (a ship) by the head’—or perhaps based on a Provençal compound of ‘cap’, meaning ‘head’

‘to come a gutser’: meanings and origin

24th Feb 2022.Reading time 15 minutes.

Australian soldiers’ slang, 1917—literally: to fall heavily; figuratively: to suffer a failure or defeat—‘gutser’ (Scotland, 1901): originally denoted a belly flop—derived from ‘gut’ in the sense of the belly

‘like death warmed up’: meaning and origin

23rd Feb 2022.Reading time 7 minutes.

1922—‘like death warmed up’ (also ‘like death warmed over’): extended form of ‘like death’, attested in the mid-17th century and meaning ‘extremely ill’, or ‘exhausted’