“ad fontes!”
expresses indignation, disbelief or amazement—USA, 1818—expanded form of the exclamation ‘ye gods’—perhaps a reference to the miracle of the loaves and fishes fed to the five thousand in the gospel of Matthew
Read MoreUK, 1830—a happy or positive attitude that fails to notice negative things, leading to a view of life that is not realistic
Read Moreliteral meaning (1551): halfway across the sea—figurative meanings (1692): halfway towards a goal or destination, half through with a matter, halfway between one state and another—also (1699): half drunk
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USA, 1927—a slip of the tongue by which the speaker reveals an unconscious thought—named after Austrian neurologist and psychotherapist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
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current use seems to allude to a speech by Winston Churchill in May 1940—but the metaphor goes back to the early 17th century
Read More17th century—allusion to the Aeneid, by Virgil, in which the Sybil throws a drugged cake to Cerberus, the monstrous dog guarding the entrance to Hades
Read Morefrom the name of Mrs Malaprop, a character who confuses long words in The Rivals (1775), a comedy by the Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan—character named after ‘malapropos’, from the French locution ‘mal à propos’, literally ‘ill to purpose’
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‘flash in the pan’: originally referred to the priming gunpowder flaring up in the flash-pan without then exploding the main charge in the barrel of a firearm
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‘blues’—from ‘blue’ (‘sorrowful’) and elliptically from ‘blue devils’ (‘depression’)—originally a metaphorical use of ‘blue’ (‘bruised’), as in ‘black and blue’
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As qualifiers of nouns denoting bodily organs, ‘itchy’ and ‘itching’ denote a restless desire—‘itchy feet’, US, 1900s—‘itching palm’, Shakespeare, circa 1599
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word histories 