‘not to put a foot wrong’: meaning and origin
to make no mistakes at all—UK, 1864—this phrase was originally used of racehorses and hunting horses
Read More“ad fontes!”
to make no mistakes at all—UK, 1864—this phrase was originally used of racehorses and hunting horses
Read Morealso ‘Frankenstein’—a creation over which the creator loses control, eventually being destroyed by it—UK, 1822—alludes to ‘Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus’ (1818), by Mary Shelley
Read Moreexpresses indignation, disbelief or amazement—USA, 1818—expanded form of the exclamation ‘ye gods’—perhaps a reference to the miracle of the loaves and fishes fed to the five thousand in the gospel of Matthew
Read More(literally): to fall heavily; (figuratively): to fail completely—UK, 1847—‘cropper’ may be derived from ‘crop’ in the phrase ‘neck and crop’ (1791), which originally referred to a heavy fall
Read Moremeaning: a person cannot be expected to behave in a manner that is not in their character—numerous variants—first recorded in 1731 as ‘If we petition a Hog, what can we expect but a grunt’
Read More(humorous and frequently ironic) determinedly or stubbornly independent—USA, 1841—apparently refers to the extreme helplessness of a hog (i.e., a pig) on the ice
Read Moreto snore—UK, 1828—this phrase likens a person’s snoring to the sound made by a herd of pigs
Read Moremeaning: if circumstances permit, if all is well—first recorded in 1683—of unknown origin
Read MoreCanada, 1970—the people who were born during the ‘baby boom’ of the years immediately following WWII, considered as a demographic bulge—any short-term increase or notably large group
Read Moreextremely large, huge, enormous—USA, 1967—of uncertain origin; probably a factitious adjective coined on the suffix ‘-ous’, influenced by ‘hugeous’ and ‘monstrous’, and perhaps by the stress-patterns of ‘stupendous’, ‘tremendous’, etc.
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