‘like a dose of salts’: meaning and origin
UK, 1806—very rapidly and thoroughly—refers to a dose of aperient salts—has come to be also used in the extended form ‘like a dose of salts through + noun’
Read MoreTag: judicial
‘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‘Jenny Darby’ (policeman)
UK, 1830—‘Jenny Darby’, ‘Johnny Darm’, and variants, were originally opprobrious names for any member of the new Metropolitan Police introduced in 1829 by Robert Peel—alterations of ‘gendarme’, with full or partial folk-etymological remodelling variously after the female forename ‘Jenny’, the male forename ‘Johnny’, and the surname ‘Darby’
Read More‘Spy Wednesday’: meaning and origin
Ireland, 1809—the Wednesday before Easter—refers to the day on which Judas Iscariot formed the intent to betray Jesus—‘spy’ denotes ‘one who spies upon, or watches, a person or persons secretly’, because, from Wednesday onwards, Judas Iscariot secretly sought an opportunity to deliver Jesus to the Jewish authorities
Read More‘butty’: meanings and origin
Northern England—a filled or open sandwich—originally (1827): a slice of bread spread with butter—composed of ‘butt-’, from the noun ‘butter’, and the suffix ‘-y’, forming diminutive nouns
Read More‘Tom Pepper’: meaning and early occurrences
USA, 1812—UK, 1818—the name of a character proverbially said to have been so great a liar that he was expelled from Hell—hence, frequently in ‘a bigger liar than Tom Pepper’, and variants: an outrageous liar
Read More‘(as) thick as two short planks’: meaning and origin
UK, 1954—very stupid—the humorous arbitrary comparison with ‘two short planks’ gives emphasis to the adjective ‘thick’, meaning stupid
Read More‘savoury duck’: meaning and origin
Lancashire, England, 1833—a faggot, a meatball, “a compound of onions, flour, and small pieces of pork” (The Liverpool Echo, 20 August 1880)—probably one of the common dishes humorously named after daintier items of food
Read More‘couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding’: meaning and origin
1910—used of a weakling, or of someone or something that is ineffectual—may have originated in Yorkshire, a county of northern England
Read More‘a sniff of the barmaid’s apron’: meaning and origin
UK, 1929—a drink of alcohol—especially used of an initial drink taken by someone (e.g. a young person) who is particularly susceptible to the effects of alcohol
Read More
word histories 