‘ember months’: meaning and origin

the final four months of the calendar year, i.e., September, October, November and December—UK, 1863—from ‘-ember’ in ‘September’, ‘November’ and ‘December’

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notes on ‘no joy without alloy’

also ‘no joy without annoy’—meaning: there is a trace of trouble or difficulty in every pleasure—was already a common proverb in the late sixteenth century

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‘General Winter’: meaning and origin

personifies the winter season as an army commander, especially in reference to winter as detrimental or destructive to a military campaign—UK, 1777, in reference to the War of American Independence

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‘to pile Pelion upon Ossa’: meanings and origin

1609—to add to what is already great, also to add difficulty to difficulty—Pelion and Ossa are two mountains in Thessaly—in Greek mythology, two giants, Otus and Ephialtes, tried to pile Pelion and Ossa on Olympus in order to reach the gods and overthrow them

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‘to bury one’s head in the sand’: meaning and origin

to refuse to face up to unpleasant or awkward realities—refers to the practice traditionally attributed to the ostrich of thrusting its head into the sand when being overtaken by pursuers, supposedly through an incapacity to distinguish between seeing and being seen

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‘capsize’: meaning, early occurrences and origin

to upset, to overturn—1777—origin unknown—perhaps based on Spanish ‘capuzar’, meaning ‘to sink (a ship) by the head’—or perhaps based on a Provençal compound of ‘cap’, meaning ‘head’

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‘all roads lead to Rome’: meaning and origin

1793—probably ultimately after post-classical Latin ‘mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam…’ (‘a thousand roads lead for ever to Rome the men…’)—the metaphor occurred in A Treatise on the Astrolabe (ca 1391), by Geoffrey Chaucer

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sense evolution of ‘rhubarb’: from theatre to nonsense

UK—‘rhubarb’ is colloquially used to denote ‘nonsense’—originated in the theatrical practice consisting for a group of actors in repeating the word ‘rhubarb’ to represent an indistinct background conversation or the noise of a crowd

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