‘Cambridgeshire nightingale’: meaning and origin
UK, 1844—the edible frog (‘Rana esculenta’)—in reference to Cambridgeshire, a county of eastern England, and to the frog’s nocturnal croaking
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‘Dutch nightingale’: meaning and origin
1710: any of various species of frog producing a call or song—one of several phrases in which the adjective ‘Dutch’ is used derogatorily or derisively
Read More‘Nessie’: meaning and origin
January 1934, in the Daily Record and Mail (Glasgow, Scotland)—composed of ‘Ness’ in ‘Loch Ness’ and the suffix ‘-ie’, used to form pet names
Read Morenineteenth-century deriding of the Loch Ness monster
Scotland—1852: illustrates how people will react when spotting unidentified creatures in Loch Ness—1892: mocks the many alleged sightings of the sea-serpent at that time
Read More‘pig’s breakfast’: meaning and origin
New Zealand, 1917—a mess, a muddle; something unattractive or unappetising—alludes to the jumbled nature of a pig’s meal
Read More‘pecking order’: meanings and origin
1927 (translation of German ‘Hackordnung’): a dominance hierarchy, seen especially in domestic poultry, that is maintained by one bird pecking another of lower status—hence (1929): any hierarchy based on rank or status
Read More‘a horse’s head in one’s bed’: meaning and origin
USA, 1972—a chilling warning given to somebody—from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), in which the severed head of a horse is left as a warning in a film producer’s bed
Read More‘rabbit punch’: meaning and origin
UK, 1911—a sharp blow to the back of the neck—refers to the practice of killing rabbits in this way, and originated in boxing—Australia, 1913: ‘rabbit killer’, also ‘rabbit-killer punch’
Read More‘mechanical bull’: original meaning and early occurrences
UK, 1869—a mechanised full-size model of a bull, simulating the movement and behaviour of a bull (particularly in a corrida), used in public entertainments
Read More‘in two shakes of a lamb’s tail’: meaning and origin
very soon or very quickly—USA, 1836, in a text attributed to Davy Crockett—alludes to the friskiness of lambs
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