‘under the weather’: meaning and origin
USA, 1815—not completely well; slightly ill or depressed—the image is of a ship caught in a storm (the noun ‘weather’ has long been used to denote a storm)
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‘Popemobile’: original meaning
USA, 1969—the 1964 Lincoln Continental specially built and equipped for Pope Paul VI’s 1965 visit to the United States
Read More‘like a dog with a bone’: meanings, origin and early occurrences
UK, 1810—tenacious, persistent, obstinate—unwilling to yield, to relent or to let go—unable to set aside a preoccupation or obsession—the image is that a dog with a bone will not let go of that bone, no matter what
Read More‘game, set (and) match’: meanings and origin
literally (UK, 1876): a victory in a tennis match, secured by winning the deciding game of the last set required to win—in extended use (UK, 1906): a complete and decisive victory
Read More‘lunatic fringe’: meanings and origin
USA, 1913: a minority group regarded as eccentric, extremist or fanatical, or simply stupid—but originally, USA, 1874: a woman or girl’s hairstyle in which the front is cut straight and square across the forehead
Read More‘idiot fringe’: meanings and origin
USA, 1927: a minority group regarded as eccentric, extremist or fanatical, or simply stupid—but originally, UK, 1873: a woman or girl’s hairstyle in which the front is cut straight and square across the forehead
Read More‘mugshot’: meaning and origin
U.S. slang, 1935—a photograph of a person’s face, especially in police or other official records—from ‘mug’ (a person’s face) and ‘shot’ (a single photographic exposure)
Read More‘rumpy-pumpy’: meaning and origin
sexual intercourse—Scotland, 1968—reduplication (with variation of the initial consonant and addition of the suffix ‘-y’) of the noun ‘rump’, denoting a person’s buttocks
Read More‘monokini’: meaning, origin and early occurrences
a woman’s topless swimsuit, consisting of the lower half of a bikini—from the prefix ‘mono-’ and ‘-kini’ in ‘bikini’, reinterpreted as containing the prefix ‘bi-’—coined in 1946 by French clothing designer Louis Réard
Read More‘sleeping policeman’ | ‘gendarme couché’
a raised band across a road, designed to make motorists reduce their speed—1961—based on the image of a policeman lying asleep in the middle of a road—in early use often with reference to Jamaica
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