‘hollow legs’: meaning and origin
USA, 1866—the capacity to eat or drink a lot without ill effects
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Is ‘(as) right as a trivet’ an alteration of ‘(as) tight as a rivet’?
It has been said that ‘(as) right as a trivet’ an alteration of ‘(as) tight as a rivet’. But the latter phrase, which postdates the former, originally meant ‘extremely tight’, not ‘thoroughly or perfectly right’.
Read More‘hen’s milk’: meaning and origin
UK, 1793—a drink made from an egg yolk whisked into warm water, used as a remedy for colds—loan translation from French ‘lait de poule’ (1746)
Read More‘husband’s tea’ meaning and origin
UK, 1837—very weak tea—from the fact that the wife drank the first brew, and then, to make her husband’s tea, filled the pot with water, adding no fresh leaves
Read More‘beer goggles’: meaning and origin
U.S. College slang, 1985—the effects of alcohol thought of metaphorically as a pair of goggles that alter a person’s perceptions especially by making others appear more attractive than they actually are
Read More‘(here’s) mud in your eye’: meaning—and origin?
USA, 1911—a humorous drinking toast—origin unknown—the image is perhaps that mud in one’s eye blurs one’s vision like alcohol does
Read More‘beer-pong’: meaning and origin
U.S. College slang, 1972—a drinking game in which players attempt to throw ping-pong balls into cups of beer, which must then be drunk by their opponents—from ‘beer’ and the second element of ‘ping-pong’
Read More‘beer-belly’: meanings and origin
1615—a protruding belly caused by excessive beer drinking; a person (typically a man) who has a protruding belly caused by excessive beer drinking
Read More‘beer-can chicken’: meaning and origin
USA (Louisiana), 1996—a dish consisting of a chicken which has been cooked with an open can of beer wedged inside the cavity
Read More‘drunk as a pissant’: meaning and origin
extremely drunk—Australia, 1892, as ‘drunk as an ant’—USA, 1925, as ‘drunk as a pissant’ in Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos
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