‘ugly duckling’: meaning and origin

a person or thing, initially ugly or unpromising, that changes into something beautiful or admirable—New Zealand, 1848—from Hans Christian Andersen’s story about a supposed ugly duckling that turns out to be a swan

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‘curtain lecture’: meaning and origin

a rebuke given in private by a wife to her husband—1625—from the idea that, in order to conduct herself properly, a wife was to rebuke her husband in secret only, i.e., in the privacy of their curtained bed

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