“ad fontes!”
The verb to frog-march (somebody) means to force (somebody) to walk forward by holding and pinning their arms from behind. This sense is milder than the original, as the frog’s march was a police metaphor denoting a method of moving a resistant person such as a prisoner, in which he or she is lifted by […]
Read MoreIn early use, apple was a general term for all kinds of fruits other than berries, including even nuts. In fact, apple and berry are the only Anglo-Saxon fruit names, the rest being of Latin or ‘exotic’ origin. This is why apple was commonly used in describing foreign fruits, which explains for example the word […]
Read MoreMEANING a young man paid or financially supported by a woman, typically an older woman, to be her escort or lover ORIGIN In English, gigolo originally denoted a professional male dancing-partner. One of its first users was the American novelist, short story writer and playwright Edna Ferber (1885-1968) in Gigolo, which was published in […]
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