“ad fontes!”
Australia, 1909—(horseracing) a bet is sure to pay off; (in extended use) something is a very strong probability—from the notion that the punter is so confident of winning the bet that he is prepared to put the whole city of London on a horse to win a brick, i.e., a ten-pound note
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USA, 1923—in motorsports: to win a race—refers to ‘checkered flag’, denoting a flag with a black-and-white checkered pattern, displayed to drivers at the end of a race
Read MoreUK, 1808—to make one’s beliefs or intentions plain—from the former practice of nailing an ensign to the mast of a ship, after damage during battle resulted in the ship’s colours no longer being clearly displayed, which otherwise might have been interpreted as a signal of surrender
Read Morea representation of the letter A in scarlet cloth which Hester Prynne is condemned to wear in The Scarlet Letter (1850), by Nathaniel Hawthorne—soon came to be used figuratively in the sense of a stigma, a mark of infamy
Read MoreUK, 1785—has been used to address a red-haired person—sometimes followed by the retort ‘there’s enough water in yours to put it out’ and variants
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great vitality, enthusiasm and liveliness—UK, 1922—originally (from 1921 onwards) used in the advertisements for Kruschen Salts
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USA, 1887—of a child: to go to bed—‘Lilywhite’ refers to the whiteness of the bedsheets—from ‘lily-white’, meaning ‘white as a lily’, hence ‘of a pure white’
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UK, mid-1950s—to set a course of exciting or dramatic events in motion—refers to firework instructions such as ‘light the blue touchpaper and retire immediately’
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UK, 1798—‘cocktail’ explained as being “vulgarly called ginger”—perhaps from the use of ‘ginger’ to denote a cock with red plumage
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UK, 1985—the blue flashing lights and two-tone siren used on an emergency vehicle when responding to an incident; by extension, the emergency services
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word histories 