“ad fontes!”
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
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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 MoreUSA, 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 MoreUSA, 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 MoreU.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 Moresexual 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 Morea 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
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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
Read Morea tendency to lose one’s temper easily—USA, 1942—‘fuse’ refers to a device by which an explosive charge is ignited—adjective ‘short-fused’: USA, 1952
Read Moreto walk with arms extended, elbows and wrists bent at right angles, one arm up, one down—1962 in To Kill a Mockingbird—refers to the representation of the human body by the ancient Egyptians
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