meaning and origin of the phrase ‘alarums and excursions’
confused activity and uproar—alludes to the frequent collocation of ‘alarum’ and ‘excursion’ in stage directions in Shakespearean drama
Read MoreTag: Cicero
meaning and origin of the proverb ‘quot homines tot sententiæ’
from Phormio, by the Roman dramatist Terence—appeared in English in the 1539 translation of Erasmus’s adages
Read Moreorigin of ‘rival’: one using the same stream as another
From ‘rīvus’, ‘a stream’, the Latin adjective ‘rīvālis’ (of, or belonging to, a stream) was used as a plural noun, ‘rīvāles’, to denote persons who have to use the same stream, and persons who have the same mistress, competitors in love.
Read More‘scruple’ (literally a small sharp stone in one’s shoe)
‘scruple’—from Latin ‘scrūpŭlus’, literally ‘a small sharp or pointed stone’—probably because such stones used to get into the open shoes of the Romans, ‘scrūpŭlus’ came to denote ‘a pricking, uneasy sensation’, hence ‘trouble’, ‘doubt’, ‘scruple’
Read Morelinguistic pondering over ‘Libra’ and ‘pound’
The English noun ‘pound’ is from Latin ‘pondō’, short for ‘lībra pondō’, literally ‘a pound’ (= ‘lībra’) ‘by weight’ (= ‘pondō’)—Latin ‘lībra’ meant ‘the Roman pound of twelve ounces’, and ‘pondō’ was a form of ‘pondus’, meaning ‘weight’.
Read Moremeaning and origin of the word ‘cicerone’
early 18th century—from the name of the Roman orator and author Marcus Tullius Cicero, apparently in allusion to the eloquence and learning of these guides
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘to set the Thames on fire’
from the image of an impossible task, ‘to set the Thames on fire’: to work wonders — typically used negatively in the ironic sense never to distinguish oneself
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘in a nutshell’
The phrase ‘in a nutshell’ originated in a story told by Pliny of a copy of Homer’s ‘Iliad’ supposedly small enough to be enclosed in the shell of a nut.
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