‘to fly off the handle’: meaning and origin
to become very agitated or angry, especially without warning or adequate reason—USA, 1816—from the image of the head of an axe or other tool becoming detached from its handle
Read More“ad fontes!”
to become very agitated or angry, especially without warning or adequate reason—USA, 1816—from the image of the head of an axe or other tool becoming detached from its handle
Read MoreUSA, 1792—to say to a person the things that they want to hear—allegedly from the story of a white man and an Indian who went hunting together, and killed a turkey and a buzzard
Read Morereal events and situations are often more remarkable or incredible than those made up in fiction—first occurred as ‘truth is always strange, stranger than fiction’ in Don Juan (1823), by George Gordon Byron
Read MoreMEANING The phrase (if you’ll) excuse (or pardon) my French is used as an apology for swearing. ORIGIN The current sense seems to derive from an actual apology for speaking French. (It is therefore unnecessary to invoke the centuries-old adversarial relationship between the English and the French.) The form pardon my French is first attested in Randolph, a Novel (1823), by the American […]
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