‘to take the mickey out of someone’: meaning and origin
UK, 1891—‘to take the mickey (or ‘the mike’) out of’: ‘to tease or ridicule’—probably after ‘Mickey (or ‘Mike’) Bliss’, rhyming slang for ‘piss’
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the various uses of ‘out of one’s skull’
USA—‘not part of a particular exclusive group’, 1955—‘out of one’s mind’, 1958—‘smashed out of one’s skull’ (= ‘drunk’, 1963)—‘bored out of one’s skull’, 1967
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘to a T’
‘with minute exactness’—UK, 1693—probably a shortening of synonymous ‘to a tittle’ (1607), ‘tittle’ meaning ‘a small mark used in writing or printing’
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘to be part and parcel of’
from the legal formula ‘part and parcel’, in which both nouns meant ‘an integral portion of something’, the second noun merely reinforcing the first
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘Paul Pry’
UK, 1826—from the eponymous character played by John Liston in a comedy by John Poole, which premiered at the Haymarket Theatre, London, on 13th September 1825
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘nosey parker’
UK, late 19th century—apparently with reference to a probably fictitious individual named Parker, taken as the type of someone inquisitive
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘for the duration’
UK, 1917—originally used of the First World War, from the term of enlistment ‘for three’, or ‘four’, ‘years or for the duration of the war’
Read More‘the man on the Clapham omnibus’ – ‘the Clapham Sect’
UK—1903: ‘the man on the Clapham omnibus’, the average or typical person—1844: ‘the Clapham Sect’, a group of social reformers based at Clapham, London
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘to come the old soldier over someone’
British, 1810—to use one’s greater age or experience to deceive someone or to shirk a duty—from ‘old soldier’ meaning ‘a person much experienced in something’
Read Moreto appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober
from the story of a woman who, having been unfairly judged by King Philip of Macedon while he was drunk, urged him to reconsider his decision when sober
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