‘holier-than-thou’: meaning and origin
self-righteously or sanctimoniously virtuous, or professing to be so—UK, 1834—alludes to the Book of Isaiah, 65:5: “Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou.”
Read More“ad fontes!”
self-righteously or sanctimoniously virtuous, or professing to be so—UK, 1834—alludes to the Book of Isaiah, 65:5: “Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou.”
Read Morethe final four months of the calendar year, i.e., September, October, November and December—UK, 1863—from ‘-ember’ in ‘September’, ‘November’ and ‘December’
Read Morea period of warm, springlike weather occurring in the autumn—hence, figuratively, a late period of youthfulness—first used from 1639 onwards by the Anglican clergyman and historian Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)
Read Morealso ‘no joy without annoy’—meaning: there is a trace of trouble or difficulty in every pleasure—was already a common proverb in the late sixteenth century
Read Morea woman who had no qualities other than attractiveness, with connotations of low intelligence, or of flightiness, or of low social status and poverty—second half of the 19th century, chiefly in stories by women writers
Read Morea person who now preserves the interests that he or she previously attacked—UK, 19th century—but the notion occurred in Chaucer’s Physician’s Tale and ‘the greatest deer-stealers make the best park-keepers’ in The Church-History of Britain (1655)
Read MoreAustralia—‘charity dame’ 1949—‘charity moll’ 1962—an amateur prostitute who charges less than the usual rate—from ‘Moll’, pet form of the female forename ‘Mary’, the noun ‘moll’ has long been used to designate a prostitute
Read Moreno money, nothing—UK, 1864, in a text by the British scholar D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson—from ‘n-’ in the determiner ‘no’, meaning ‘not any’, and ‘-uppence’ in ‘tuppence’
Read MoreUK, 1857—This phrase was originally used by children to express or encourage an attitude of indifference to taunts, insults or other verbal abuse.
Read MoreUSA, 1832—for an extremely long time or forever
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