‘hell hath no fury like a woman’s corns’
Ireland, 1845: ‘hell has no fury like a woman corned’—puns on ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’, which refers to Congreve’s ‘The Mourning Bride’ (1697)
Read MoreTag: judicial
meaning of ‘hit me now with the child in my arms’
Irish-English phrase—first recorded in 1892—used to express pretended fear of, and/or provocation to, a physical attack
Read Moremeanings of ‘more holy than righteous’
1) a seemingly devout or respectable person who lacks virtue—2) (with a pun on ‘holey’, i.e., full of holes) jocularly applied to holey things such as clothes
Read More‘not waving but drowning’: meaning and origin
used of a person whose display of distress misleads others into underestimating this distress—UK, 1962—from ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ (1954), by Stevie Smith
Read Morehistory of ‘slower than the second coming of Christ’
extremely slow—USA, 1874—in Christian theology, the Second Coming of Christ is the prophesied return of Christ to Earth at the Last Judgement
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘street angel (and) house devil’
USA, 1878—someone who behaves exemplarily in public, but who is abusive in private life—calque of German ‘Strass-Engel Haus-Teufel’
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘to box clever’
UK, 1935—to conduct oneself adroitly (‘clever’: adverb meaning ‘skilfully’)—originated in boxing
Read More‘damaged goods’ and venereal disease
1911—‘Damaged Goods’, translation of ‘Les Avariés’, by French dramatist Eugène Brieux, about the dangers of ignorance concerning sexually transmitted diseases
Read Morea Briticism: ‘lollipop’ in reference to school crossing
1957—circular sign on a pole held up to stop traffic so that children may cross the road near a school—person who stops traffic by holding up such a sign
Read More‘it’s baloney, no matter how thin you slice it’
USA, 1926—meaning: it’s utter nonsense, no matter how hard you try to prove the opposite—from ‘bologna’: a large smoked sausage made of seasoned mixed meats
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word histories 