the authentic origin of ‘the devil to pay’
refers to a person making a pact with the Devil: the heavy price has to be paid in the end—unrelated to the nautical phrase ‘the devil to pay and no pitch hot’
Read MoreTag: Latin
meaning and origin of ‘to warm the cockles of one’s heart’
late 17th century—probably based on the resemblance between the shape of the heart and that of a cockleshell – or of the body the shell protects
Read Moremeaning, origin and synonyms of ‘a snake in the grass’
1696—perhaps from ‘latet anguis in herba’ (a snake hides in the grass) in Virgil’s Eclogues—cf. ‘a pad [= toad] in the straw’ and French ‘il y a de l’oignon’
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
Read Moreorigin of the word ‘paraphernalia’
from Medieval Latin ‘paraphernalia’, short for ‘paraphernalia bona’, ‘married woman’s property’, i.e. the goods which a bride brings over and above her dowry
Read Morean oxymoronic word: ‘oxymoron’
The word ‘oxymoron’ has the property it denotes: it is from Greek ‘oxús’, meaning ‘sharp’, ‘acute’, and ‘mōrόs’, meaning ‘dull’, ‘stupid’.
Read Moremeaning and origin of the word ‘pogue’
Via Irish ‘póg’, Irish-English ‘pogue’ (a kiss) is from ecclesiastical Latin ‘pacem’ (kiss of peace)—the name of the band is from ‘pogue mahone’ (kiss my arse).
Read Moremeaning and origin of the word ‘incunabula’
Latin ‘incunabula’: ‘swaddling clothes’, hence ‘beginning’—denotes the early printed books (from the 1450s to the end of the 15th century)
Read MoreEating in the Romance languages
In Latin, short words having complicated irregularities in their forms gave way to simpler words with regular patterns and longer phonetic individualities.
Read Moremeaning and origin of the word ‘cicerone’
early 18th century—from the name of the Roman orator and author Marcus Tullius Cicero, apparently in allusion to the eloquence and learning of these guides
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