‘blood wagon’: meaning and origin

UK—an ambulance (i.e., a vehicle designed to carry sick or injured people)—originally (Royal Air Force slang, 1921): a specially equipped airplane for carrying sick or injured people

Read More

‘to rob Peter to pay Paul’: meanings and origin

to take away from one person, cause, etc., in order to pay or confer something on another; to discharge one debt by incurring another—late 14th century—from the association of ‘Peter’ and ‘Paul’, the names of two leading apostles and saints, and fellow martyrs at Rome

Read More

‘pizza face’: meaning and origin

a person with facial acne—Californian high-school slang, 1963—in this expression, the pimples caused by facial acne are likened to slices of pepperoni on a pizza

Read More

‘baby blues’: meaning and origin

depression suffered by a mother in the period following childbirth—USA, 1940, in Expectant Motherhood, by Nicholson Joseph Eastman—variant: ‘after-the-baby blues’ (USA, 1940)

Read More

‘Pharaoh’s Revenge’: meaning and origin

diarrhoea suffered by travellers, especially in Egypt—USA, 1973—does not seem to have been coined after the synonymous ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’—may somehow allude to the legendary curse of the pharaohs

Read More

‘gyppy tummy’: meaning and origin

diarrhoea suffered by travellers, especially in Egypt—1915, British Army—the word ‘gyppy’ is from ‘gyp’ in ‘Egyptian’, and the suffix ‘-y’, used to form familiar diminutives

Read More