‘Bloody Caesar’: meaning and origin

a drink consisting of vodka and Clamato juice—Canada, 1969—coined after ‘Bloody Mary’—this drink is said to have been invented by bartender Walter Chell

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‘passion-killer’: meanings and origin

UK—anything which discourages or inhibits sexual activity—originally (1943, British military slang): the sturdy, practical and unattractive underwear issued to female service personnel

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‘chateau tap-water’ | ‘Château-la-Pompe’

tap-water likened to a grand cru—in reference to ‘château’ in names of wines of superior quality—in French ‘Château-la-Pompe’ (i.e. ‘Château-the-Pump’), ‘pompe’ denotes a device for raising water

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‘Château Plonk’: meaning and origin

wine, especially cheap wine of inferior quality—UK, 1973—from ‘château’ (as used in names of expensive wines of superior quality made at vineyard estates) and ‘plonk’, denoting cheap wine of inferior quality

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‘to shoot the cat’: meaning (and origin?)

to vomit, especially from drunkenness—slang, obsolete—1609 as ‘to jerk the cat’—perhaps alludes to the fact that cats are prone to vomit—cf. also the obsolete French verb ‘renarder’, to vomit, from the noun ‘renard’, denoting a fox

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‘winedot’: meaning and origin

Australia, 1933—an addict of cheap wine or/and of methylated spirits—apparently coined jocularly after ‘Wyandotte’, denoting a domestic chicken of a medium-sized American breed

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‘to drink the Kool-Aid’: meanings and origin

USA, 1978—to commit suicide; to demonstrate unquestioning obedience or loyalty—alludes to a mass suicide, in 1978, by members of the Peoples’ Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, who drank a cyanide-laced drink thought to be similar to Kool-Aid

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