Primary Menu
  • home
  • alphabetical index
  • about me
  • contact
  • donate
word histories

word histories

“ad fontes!”

Tag: Francis Bacon

‘if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain’

21st Nov 2022.Reading time 6 minutes.

originally “If the Hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet wil go to the hil” in Of Boldnesse (1625), an essay by the English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Read More

‘cleanliness is next to godliness’: meaning and origin

18th Jul 2021.Reading time 13 minutes.

UK, 1773—physical cleanliness betokens spiritual purity, i.e., cleanliness proceeds from piety—apparently, this phrase is erroneously ascribed to the English preacher and co-founder of Methodism John Wesley

Read More

meaning and origin of ‘Morton’s fork’

17th Nov 2017.Reading time 8 minutes.

an argument said to have been used by John Morton in levying forced loans: a person living well was obviously rich; one living frugally must have savings

Read More
Creative Commons License
All posts by word histories are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence.

Search this blog

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 709 other subscribers.
Follow word histories on WordPress.com

Categories

arts Australia & New Zealand etymology French/English linguistics literature media music public affairs religion symbolisms United Kingdom & Ireland USA & Canada

Main Tags

animals Australia Christianity dictionaries drinks economics food human body Ireland judicial Latin military newspapers & magazines phrases politics slang sports & games theatre United Kingdom USA

links

  • A Dictionary of South-African English on Historical Principles
  • Académie française
  • Australian newspapers, magazines and journals, books, and other formats
  • British and Irish newspaper archive
  • Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
  • CNRTL (Centre national de ressources textuelles et lexicales)
  • Collins Dictionary
  • Dictionaries of the Scots Language / Dictionars o the Scots Leid
  • English, French and Latin dictionaries
  • Gallica (bibliothèque numérique de la Bibliothèque nationale de France)
  • Irish newspaper archive
  • Lexilogos (a comprehensive set of resources for the study of the languages of the world)
  • Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / The National Library of Wales
  • Merriam-Webster Dictionary
  • New-Zealand and Pacific newspapers, magazines and journals, books, and other formats
  • Newspaper archive
  • U.S. newspaper archive

  • Follow Following
    • word histories
    • Join 709 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • word histories
    • Customise
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
This website uses cookies. By continuing, you agree to their use. Learn more, including how we use cookies and how you can change your settings.