“Ad fontes!”
a woman who had no qualities other than attractiveness, with connotations of low intelligence, or of flightiness, or of low social status and poverty—second half of the 19th century, chiefly in stories by women writers
Read Moreto speak the plural noun ‘prunes’ aloud in order to form the lips into an attractive shape—UK, 1846—particularly associated with portrait photography; also with kissing
Read MoreUK, 1971—a pun on ‘Kensington Gore’, the name of a thoroughfare in London, and on the noun ‘gore’, denoting blood shed from a wound—it is unclear whether ‘Kensington Gore’ (as applied to artificial blood) was originally a trademark
Read Morea tall person—Australia, 1968, in the stage play Norm and Ahmed, by Alexander Buzo—gained currency from occurring in the film Gallipoli (1981), scripted by David Williamson
Read Moredepression suffered by a mother in the period following childbirth—USA, 1940, in Expectant Motherhood, by Nicholson Joseph Eastman—variant: ‘after-the-baby blues’ (USA, 1940)
Read More
personify January and February as army commanders, especially in reference to winter as detrimental or destructive to a military campaign—apparently coined by Russian Prince Alexander Menshikov in 1855, during the Crimean War
Read Moresuicide committed by a person, especially a child or young adult, as a result of being bullied—blend of the nouns ‘bully’ and ‘suicide’—coined since 2001 on separate occasions by various persons, independently from one another
Read MoreThe noun ‘dunny’ denotes a toilet, especially an outside toilet. This noun has been used in various phrases expressing notions such as conspicuousness, loneliness, ill luck, etc.
Read MoreUK, 1866—used as an observation, a reproof or a warning implying over-cleverness—plays on two meanings of the adjective ‘sharp’: a) literal meaning: ‘cutting’; b) figurative meaning: ‘keen-witted’
Read Morediarrhoea suffered by travellers, especially in Egypt—USA, 1973—does not seem to have been coined after the synonymous ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’—may somehow allude to the legendary curse of the pharaohs
Read More
word histories 