meanings of ‘up in Annie’s room’
late 1910s: an answer to an enquiry as to the whereabouts of someone who cannot be found—1930s: the space at the top of the dartboard where scores are doubled
Read MoreTag: dictionaries
origin of ‘skinflint’
attested 1699—from the hyperbolical phrase ‘to skin a flint’ (1656)—cf. ‘to skin a flea for its hide and tallow’ and French ‘tondre un œuf’ (‘to shave an egg’)
Read Moreorigin of ‘to cut both ways’
to serve both sides of an argument; to have both good and bad effects—England, early 18th century—refers to a sword which has two cutting edges
Read Moreorigin of ‘simon-pure’
1790—from the name of a Quaker who must prove his identity against an impostor’s claims in ‘A Bold Stroke for a Wife’ (1718), a comedy by Susanna Centlivre
Read Morethe biblical name ‘Moab’ in public-school slang
In Psalms, the subjugated nation of Moab is compared to a vessel used for washing the feet—hence in school slang ‘Moab’: humorous for ‘washroom’, ‘tub’, ‘sink’
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘pogue’
Via Irish ‘póg’, Irish-English ‘pogue’ (a kiss) is from ecclesiastical Latin ‘pacem’ (kiss of peace)—the name of the band is from ‘pogue mahone’ (kiss my arse).
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘incunabula’
Latin ‘incunabula’: ‘swaddling clothes’, hence ‘beginning’—denotes the early printed books (from the 1450s to the end of the 15th century)
Read MoreEating in the Romance languages
In Latin, short words having complicated irregularities in their forms gave way to simpler words with regular patterns and longer phonetic individualities.
Read Morea Northern-English word: ‘mardy’
‘mardy’: ‘sulky’, ‘moody’—from ‘mard’, dialectal alteration of ‘marred’, meaning, of a child, ‘spoilt’, and the suffix ‘-y’, meaning ‘having the qualities of’
Read Moreeverything but the kitchen sink
The phrase ‘everything but the kitchen sink’, or ‘the kitchen stove’, and variants mean ‘practically everything imaginable’—origin: USA, early 20th century
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