meaning and origin of ‘the dog’s letter’
Named after Latin ‘canina litera’ (‘the canine letter’), ‘the dog’s letter’ is a name for the letter R, from its resemblance in sound to the snarl of a dog.
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padoodle (one-eyed car)
padoodle (USA): exclamation shouted by a person who spots a car with only one working headlight, which entitles this person to kiss or hit someone else
Read MoreYorkshire tyke
The word ‘tyke’, a nickname for a person from Yorkshire, originally meant ‘mongrel’. The people from Yorkshire have adopted it as a term of self-reference.
Read Morehair of the dog
A Mad Dog in a Coffee House (London, 20th March 1809) by the English caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) The term hair of the dog denotes an alcoholic drink taken to cure a hangover. It is a shortening of the phrase hair of the dog that bit you, first recorded in A dialogue […]
Read Morehot dog
Greenwich Village Fair – “Hot Dogs” – June 1917 photograph: Library of Congress The term hot dog denotes a sausage, especially a frankfurter, served hot in a long roll split lengthways. In US slang, the noun dog has been used to denote a sausage since the late 19th century. This usage is first recorded […]
Read Moreto sell a pup
photograph: Dog-Names-And-More.com Frequently used in the passive, the phrase to sell someone a pup means to swindle someone, especially by selling something of little worth on its supposed prospective value. And to buy a pup means to be swindled. The expression is first recorded in 1901. That year, several newspapers gave its most likely origin; for example, the […]
Read MoreShock-headed Peter
In The English Struwwelpeter and the Birth of International Copyright (The Library, journal of the Bibliographical Society, 2013), Jane Brown and Gregory Jones explain that the ancient free city of Frankfurt am Main saw in 1845 the first appearance of Dr Heinrich Hoffmann¹’s Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder², a German children’s Christmas picture book. […]
Read Moretit for tat
original illustration for The Spider and the Flie (1556), by John Heywood The phrase tit for tat means an equivalent given in return or retaliation. The expression seems to be a variation of the obsolete and more comprehensible tip for tap, in which both tip and tap meant a light but distinct blow, stroke, hit. The phrase therefore meant blow for […]
Read Morebeyond the pale
MEANING outside the limits of social convention ORIGIN The primary meanings of the noun pale are a wooden stake or post used with others to form a fence and a wooden fence made of stakes driven into the ground. This word appeared in the late 14th century and is from Anglo-Norman and Middle French pal, meaning a stake, a palisade, a […]
Read Moredandy
Dandy Dinmonts by the Haining Loch (1888), by the Scottish artist Robert Smellie MEANING a man unduly concerned with looking stylish and fashionable ORIGIN As it was originally in use on the Scottish Border at the end of the 18th century, dandy represents perhaps the name Andrew. (From Dandie […]
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