‘curiosity killed the cat’: meaning and origin
1868, but late 16th century as ‘care [= disquiet] killed a cat’—the image is perhaps that disquiet would exhaust the nine lives allotted to a cat
Read MoreTag: Ben Jonson
the cultural background to ‘the Swan of Avon’
an epithet for William Shakespeare, born at Stratford-upon-Avon, on the River Avon—first used by Ben Jonson in the earliest collected edition (1623) of Shakespeare’s plays—but this use of ‘swan’ for a bard, a poet, is rooted in a tradition going back to antiquity
Read MoreHow ‘magazine’ came to denote a periodical publication.
‘Magazine’ (= ‘storehouse’) came to denote a book providing information on a specified subject (17th c.). This gave rise to the sense ‘periodical magazine (= ‘repository’) of the most interesting pieces of information published in the newspapers’ (18th c.).
Read Morethe biblical origin of ‘deaf as an adder’
The image of the deaf adder originated in the Book of Psalms, 58:4-5: “the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers”.
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘Morton’s fork’
an argument said to have been used by John Morton in levying forced loans: a person living well was obviously rich; one living frugally must have savings
Read Moreorigin of ‘to have someone’s guts for garters’
The phrase ‘to have someone’s guts for garters’, used as a hyperbolical threat, is first recorded in the late 16th century.
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘the dog’s letter’
Named after Latin ‘canina litera’ (‘the canine letter’), ‘the dog’s letter’ is a name for the letter R, from its resemblance in sound to the snarl of a dog.
Read Moresense evolution and origin of ‘conundrum’
The word ‘conundrum’, attested in 1596, originally meant ‘whimsy’, ‘oddity’. It perhaps originated as a parody of some Latin scholastic phrase.
Read Moreorigin of the phrase ‘no room to swing the cat’
Q. Once hairy scenter did transgress, Whose dame, both powerful and fierce, Tho’ hairy scenter took delight To do the thing both fair and right, Upon a Sabbath day. A. An old Woman whipping her Cat for Catching Mice on a Sunday. from The True Trial […]
Read Morethe curious history of the word ‘gazette’
In A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (1611), Randle Cotgrave gave the following definition of the French word gazette: A certaine Venetian coyne scarce worth our farthing; also, a Bill of Newes; or, a short Relation of the generall occurrences of the Time, forged most commonly at Venice, and thence dispersed, euery month, into most parts of Christendome. […]
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