“ad fontes!”
of a person or thing: irretrievably defunct or out of date—UK, 1905—perhaps originally in allusion to ‘Diplodocus Carnegii’, named after Andrew Carnegie, who, that year, presented the skeleton of that diplodocus to the Natural History Museum of London
Read More‘I feel intense dislike or contempt for (a person)’—USA, 1950—also occasionally used of miserliness
Read Morebag-in-box wine—South Africa, 1983—based on the contrast between ‘château’ (referring to expensive wines of superior quality) and ‘cardboard’ (referring to inexpensive bag-in-box wines)
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USA, 1876—perfect, especially in cat-related contexts—colloquial, humorous blend of ‘purr’ and ‘perfect’
Read Moreto get excited, annoyed, angry—Australia, 1923—maybe based on the image of a person who, while riding a bicycle, gets provoked by another person: the cyclist would then dismount and respond to the provocator
Read Morean easy target, i.e., a person who, or thing that, is defenceless against an attack or other danger—first used in 1936 & 1937 by the Canadian journalist Gordon Sinclair
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U.S. slang, 1979—a condom—based on the phonetic similarity between the two nouns that compose it
Read More(chiefly humorous): a non-specific or hypothetical person, or a person whose name is unknown, forgotten or withheld—Australia, 1902—apparently an arbitrary formation
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not the only person or thing to be taken into consideration—USA, 1918, in a story by Harry Charles Witwer—later popularised by P. G. Wodehouse
Read More1945—originally referred to anti-fascist committees in Germany at the end of, and immediately after, World War II—from German ‘Antifa’, shortened from ‘Antifaschismus’ (i.e., anti-fascism) and from ‘antifaschistisch’ (i.e., anti-fascist)
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word histories 