“ad fontes!”
to take heroin by heating it and inhaling the fumes, which form a pattern resembling the tail of a dragon—originated in Hong Kong in the 1950s as a translation of Cantonese slang ‘chui lung’, ‘dragon chasing’
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UK, 1935—to laugh loudly and coarsely—alludes to the sound of water gurgling down a drain
Read MoreUSA, 1889—when a situation reaches a critical point and one must commit oneself to an action or decision—the image is of having to shove when mere pushing is ineffective
Read MoreUSA, 1917—a method of treating a drug addict by sudden and complete withdrawal of the drug, instead of by a gradual process—alludes to the goose pimples, resembling the skin of a cold turkey, that a person experiences as a side effect of the treatment
Read MoreUK, 1763—extremely quickly or suddenly—in all probability, the male forename ‘Jack’, pet form of ‘John’, typifies an ordinary man, and the surname ‘Robinson’ is a generic personal name
Read MoreAustralia, 1918—dazed and uncomprehending—from the image of a mullet that has been stunned
Read MoreAustralia, 1982—a stretch of Oxford Street, in Sydney, which is the city’s main gay district—refers to the use of Vaseline to ease anal intercourse, and based on the alliteration in /v/
Read More19th century—refer to two handkerchiefs, one used as a clothing accessory, the other for blowing the nose—hence, figuratively ‘for display rather than for use’ and ‘one for display and one for use’
Read Morea representation of the letter A in scarlet cloth which Hester Prynne is condemned to wear in The Scarlet Letter (1850), by Nathaniel Hawthorne—soon came to be used figuratively in the sense of a stigma, a mark of infamy
Read MoreThis phrase is applied to someone who is very strong and resilient in the face of hardship or pain. It originated in the USA in 1918; it has been used in British English since 1933.
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word histories 