“ad fontes!”
a married woman living apart from her husband (18th century)—originally (16th century) an unmarried woman who has borne an illegitimate child—alludes to a bed of grass as a typical place for illicit sexual intercourse
Read MoreUK—anything which discourages or inhibits sexual activity—originally (1943, British military slang): the sturdy, practical and unattractive underwear issued to female service personnel
Read Moreexpresses indignation, disbelief or amazement—USA, 1818—expanded form of the exclamation ‘ye gods’—perhaps a reference to the miracle of the loaves and fishes fed to the five thousand in the gospel of Matthew
Read More‘raspberry’: a rude sound (suggestive of breaking wind) made by blowing with the tongue between the lips, as an expression of mockery or contempt—UK, 1888—‘raspberry’ (short for ‘raspberry tart’): rhyming slang for ‘fart’
Read Moredefined by Collins Dictionary as denoting “an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events”—first used in 1975 by the U.S. political scientist John Pearson Roche
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a rebuke given in private by a wife to her husband—1625—from the idea that, in order to conduct herself properly, a wife was to rebuke her husband in secret only, i.e., in the privacy of their curtained bed
Read Morelove or affection insincerely professed or displayed as a means of gaining a benefit or advantage—circa 1665—the image is of love given in return for food from a cupboard
Read Moreto snore—UK, 1828—this phrase likens a person’s snoring to the sound made by a herd of pigs
Read Morea reader of, or a writer in, The Guardian, seen as being typically left-wing, liberal and politically correct—UK, 1997—The Guardian is a centre-left newspaper published in London and Manchester, England
Read Moresoldiers regarded simply as material to be expended in war—‘cannon fodder’ (1847), said to have been coined after German ‘Kanonenfutter’—French ‘chair à canon’ (1814), first used in reference to Napoléon Bonaparte
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word histories 