a hypothesis as to the origin of the phrase ‘to paint the town red’
USA, 1881—seems to have originated in the image of a torchlit procession or/and of a firework display that illuminate(s) a town
Read MoreTag: festivities
origin of ‘bonfire’: a fire in which bones were burnt
In A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), the English lexicographer Samuel Johnson (1709-84) thus defined bonfire: [from bon, good, French, and fire.] A fire made for some publick cause of triumph or exultation. In support of this etymology, bonfire in several languages is, literally, fire of joy. For example: – French feu de joie – Italian fuoco d’allegrezza – German Freudefeuer – Dutch vreugdevuur. But […]
Read Moreorigin and history of the word ‘sport’
The noun sport is a shortening of disport, which was borrowed in the early 14th century from Anglo-Norman and Old and Middle French forms such as desport, deport, disport (modern French déport). This French word was thus defined by Randle Cotgrave in A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (1611): Deport: masculine. Disport, sport, […]
Read MoreThe veracious story of a worthy knight, called Sir Loin of Beef
The English poet John Taylor (1578-1653) wrote, in The great eater, of Kent, or Part of the admirable teeth and stomacks exploits of Nicholas Wood, of Harrisom in the county of Kent His excessiue manner of eating without manners, in strange and true manner described, by Iohn Taylor (1630): One Iohn Dale was too hard […]
Read Moreorigin and history of the word ‘picnic’
Blowing up the PIC NIC’s:—or—Harlequin Quixotte attacking the Puppets. Vide Tottenham Street Pantomime (1802), by James Gillray (1756-1815) — image: The British Museum MEANING a meal eaten outdoors ORIGIN This word is from French pique-nique, probably formed with reduplication from the verb piquer, to pick. (Similarly, pêle-mêle, the origin […]
Read Moreorigin of ‘dandelion’ and of its French equivalent ‘pissenlit’
the 1905 edition of Le Petit Larousse illustré, a French-language encyclopaedic dictionary published by the Éditions Larousse In 1890, Eugène Grasset (1845-1917) designed the image of la Semeuse (the Sower) blowing dandelion seeds, which accompanies the motto of the Éditions Larousse, Je sème à tout vent (I sow to the four winds). The word […]
Read Morehistory and origin of the word ‘tennis’
The word tennis in its current sense is short for lawn tennis. The original form of tennis (known as real tennis to distinguish it from the later lawn tennis) was played with a solid ball on an enclosed court divided into equal but dissimilar halves, the service side (from which service was always delivered) and […]
Read Moreorigin of ‘as fit as a fiddle’
Caricature of Gabriel Harvey from Haue with you to Saffron-walden. Or, Gabriell Harueys hunt is vp (1596), by Thomas Nashe. Entitled The picture of Gabriell Harvey as he is readie to let fly upon Ajax, this caricature depicts him rushing to the toilet at the thought of Nashe’s publication. Ajax was a pun on […]
Read Morethe authentic origin of ‘a pretty kettle of fish’
The phrase ‘a pretty kettle of fish’ originally referred to a net full of fish, which, when drawn up with its contents, is suggestive of confusion, flurry and disorder—‘kettle’ being a form of ‘kiddle’, a noun denoting a dam or other barrier in a river, with an opening fitted with nets to catch fish.
Read Moreorigin of ‘gigolo’
MEANING a young man paid or financially supported by a woman, typically an older woman, to be her escort or lover ORIGIN In English, gigolo originally denoted a professional male dancing-partner. One of its first users was the American novelist, short story writer and playwright Edna Ferber (1885-1968) in Gigolo, which was published in […]
Read More
word histories 