‘home (away) from home’: meaning and origin
a place where one is as happy, relaxed or comfortable as in one’s own home; especially a place providing homelike accommodation or amenities—UK, 1839, in advertisements for hotels
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‘iron maiden’: meaning and origin
1757, as a loan translation of German ‘Eiserne Jungfer’ (German text published in 1740)—1837, as a loan translation of German ‘Eiserne Jungfrau’—an instrument of torture, supposedly used during the Middle Ages, consisting of an upright coffin-shaped box lined with iron spikes, into which the victim is shut
Read More‘budgie smugglers’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1998—a pair of short, tight-fitting men’s swimming trunks—refers to the appearance of the male genitals in figure-hugging trunks—‘budgie’: colloquial abbreviation of ‘budgerigar’, denoting a small Australian parrot
Read More‘can eat an apple through a picket fence’ and variants
used of a buck-toothed person—USA, 1933, as ‘can eat an apple through a picket fence’—USA, 1950, as ‘can eat an apple through a tennis racquet’—UK, 1979, as ‘can eat an apple through a letter box’
Read More‘dad-joke’: meaning and origin
USA, 1987—a joke of the type said to be told by fathers, i.e., a hackneyed, embarrassing or unoriginal joke
Read More‘dad-dancing’: meaning and origin
UK, 1996—an awkward, unfashionable or unrestrained style of dancing to pop music, as characteristically performed by middle-aged or older men
Read More‘eligible bachelor’: meaning and early occurrences
UK, 1830—In ‘eligible bachelor’, the adjective ‘eligible’ means ‘suitable as a partner in marriage’.
Read More‘red-light district’: meaning and origin
USA, 1893—the part of a town or city in which prostitution and other commercial sexual activities are concentrated—originally used of Louisville, Kentucky—from the use of a red light as a sign outside a brothel
Read More‘butterfingered’ | ‘butterfingers’
‘butterfingered’, adjective, 1615: having a tendency to let things fall or slip from one’s hands—also (English, regional) unable or unwilling to handle hot items with one’s bare hands—‘butterfingers’, noun, 1835: a butterfingered person, a person with a tendency to let things fall or slip from his or her hands
Read More‘see that’s wet, see that’s dry’: meaning and origin
Ireland, 1889—emphasises the truthfulness and sincerity of what one is saying—derives from a children’s oath which involved licking a finger, drying it, and drawing it across the throat while saying “My finger’s wet. My finger’s dry. Cut my throat if I tell a lie.”
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