“ad fontes!”
also ‘mustang court’ and ‘kangaroo inquest’—USA, 1840—a mock court that disregards or parodies existing principles of law; any tribunal in which judgment is rendered arbitrarily or unfairly
Read MoreUK, 1909—parliamentary procedure: a form of closure by which the chair or speaker selects certain amendments for discussion and excludes others—based on the image of a kangaroo leaping over obstacles
Read MoreUSA, 1792—to say to a person the things that they want to hear—allegedly from the story of a white man and an Indian who went hunting together, and killed a turkey and a buzzard
Read Morea person who shows no proficiency in the use of information technology—USA, 1998—from ‘techno-’ in ‘technological’ and ‘technology’, and ‘-saur’ in ‘dinosaur’, i.e., a person who is unable to adapt to change
Read Moresmartly dressed—from the verb ‘fig out/up’, meaning ‘to smarten up’—this verb is probably an alteration of the verb ‘feague’, of uncertain origin, meaning ‘to make (a horse) lively’
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to rain very heavily—UK, 1820—sometimes appended to the phrase ‘to rain cats and dogs’
Read Moreto 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
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word histories 