‘that way madness lies’: meaning and origin
UK, 1811—a proposed course of action is bound to lead to disaster—quotation from King Lear, a tragedy by William Shakespeare
Read More“Ad fontes!”
UK, 1811—a proposed course of action is bound to lead to disaster—quotation from King Lear, a tragedy by William Shakespeare
Read Moreliteral meaning, 1473: something produced or manufactured—1534: an arduous task—1810: a commotion, a fuss—1623: ‘a filthy piece of work’ is applied to a person in Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens
Read MoreUK, 1849—transformation into a pumpkin; extravagant or absurdly uncritical glorification—coined after Hellenistic Greek ‘ἀποκολοκύντωσις’, the title of a travesty ascribed to Seneca, according to which the deceased Roman emperor Claudius, instead of being elevated to divine status, is changed into a pumpkin
Read MoreUK, 1847—obviously not present where one/it should be—popularised in 1859 by the British statesman John Russell—alludes to the Annals, Book III, 76, by the Roman historian Tacitus
Read Morea sample text beginning with ‘lorem ipsum’, based on jumbled elements from Cicero’s De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum—‘lorem ipsum’: arbitrary clipping of the first syllable of ‘dolorem ipsum’ in Cicero’s text
Read MoreUK, 1824—thoroughly or perfectly right—‘trivet’: a metal tripod for a cooking pot or kettle to stand on—the phrase refers to a trivet’s always standing firm on its three feet
Read MoreUK, 1710—in ease and luxury—refers to the use of clover as fodder, as explained by Samuel Johnson in A Dictionary of the English Language (1755): “To live in Clover, is to live luxuriously; clover being extremely delicious and fattening to cattle.”
Read MoreUSA, 1876: from beginning to end, completely, exhaustively—literal meaning, 1852: all the successive parts of a meal, from soup at the beginning to nuts at the end
Read MoreUK, 1823 as ‘calf’s head is best hot’, defined by John Badcock as “the apology for one of those who made no bones of dining with his topper on” in Slang. A Dictionary of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, the Pit, of Bon-ton, and the Varieties of Life
Read Morea word or piece of text in which the design and layout of the letters creates a visual image related to the meaning of the words themselves—from French ‘calligramme’, coined in 1918 by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire—from ‘calligraphie’ and ‘idéogramme’
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