“ad fontes!”
British and Irish English, 1833—denotes qualified pleasure—also: ‘to give [someone] a poke in the eye (with a — stick)’, meaning to deprecate [someone]—from ‘a poke in the eye’, denoting something undesirable
Read MoreAustralia, 1973—used of anything that is absolutely unacceptable, and of any disagreeable situation or experience—‘Jap’: derogatory shortening of ‘Japanese’—Anzac Day: commemoration of the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915
Read More
a sample text beginning with ‘lorem ipsum’, based on jumbled elements from Cicero’s De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum—‘lorem ipsum’: arbitrary clipping of the first syllable of ‘dolorem ipsum’ in Cicero’s text
Read More
UK, 1935—to laugh loudly and coarsely—alludes to the sound of water gurgling down a drain
Read MoreUK, 1685—a person who is friendly only when it is easy or convenient to be so, whose friendship cannot be relied on in times of difficulty
Read MoreUSA, 1890—to regain one’s energy by resting after a period of exertion—the image is of restoring an electric charge to a battery
Read More
Australia, 1927—very drunk; sated with food—‘goog’, Australian-English slang for an egg, was perhaps formed on the sense of ‘gog’ in ‘goosgog’, denoting a gooseberry
Read MoreUK, 1763—extremely quickly or suddenly—in all probability, the male forename ‘Jack’, pet form of ‘John’, typifies an ordinary man, and the surname ‘Robinson’ is a generic personal name
Read More
Australia—familiar name of St Vincent’s Private Hospital, Sydney—‘Jesus’ refers to the fact that the hospital is operated by a religious organisation—‘Hilton’ alludes to the hospital’s plushness
Read MoreAustralia, 1876—a person drinking alone at a bar; a drink taken alone—origin unknown—perhaps related to ‘Johnny Warder’, denoting “an idle drunkard who hangs about pub corners looking for a drink”
Read More
word histories 