meaning and origin of the phrase ‘a nod is as good as a wink’
‘a nod’s as good as a wink (to a blind horse)’ 18th century—acknowledges that a hint or suggestion has been understood without the need of further elaboration
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meaning and origin of the phrase ‘let’s return to our muttons’
to return to the matter in hand—from French ‘revenons à nos moutons’ (‘let’s return to our sheep’), allusion to ‘La Farce de Maistre Pierre Pathelin’ (ca 1457)
Read Moreorigin of ‘Froggy’ (French)
mid-19th cent.—perhaps from a specific application of the general term of abuse ‘Frog’, aided by the shared initial consonant cluster in ‘French’ and ‘frog’
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘neither fish nor fowl’
Origin: for purposes of fasting, food was divided into categories – ‘fish’, the flesh of fish, ‘flesh’, the flesh of land-animals, ‘fowl’, the flesh of birds.
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘to cut a caper’
‘caper’: probably abbreviation of ‘cabriole’, from Italian ‘capriola’, literally ‘female roe deer’, from Latin ‘capreola’, ‘wild goat’, from ‘capra’, she-goat
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘betwixt and between’
‘betwixt and between’, late 18th century—not fully or properly either of two things, in an intermediate or middling position
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘carrot and stick’
early 20th century—refers to the method of tempting a donkey to move forward by dangling a carrot before it, and beating it with a stick if it refuses
Read More‘beanfeast’, ‘beano’: meaning and origin
‘beano’, abbreviation of ‘beanfeast’: an enjoyable time; originally an annual dinner, given by employers to employees, or held by organisations or clubs
Read Morethe authentic origin of ‘red herring’
Red herring, used in laying trails for hounds to follow, was misunderstood as a deliberate attempt to distract them, hence the figurative use of ‘red herring’.
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘to go haywire’
From the practice of using hay-baling wire for makeshift repairs, ‘haywire’ came to mean crudely made, improvised, hence disorganised, erratic, crazy.
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