‘turista’: meaning and origin
USA, 1956—diarrhoea suffered by travellers, originally and especially in Mexico—borrowed from Spanish ‘turista’, translating as ‘tourist’
Read More“ad fontes!”
USA, 1956—diarrhoea suffered by travellers, originally and especially in Mexico—borrowed from Spanish ‘turista’, translating as ‘tourist’
Read Morethe use of books for therapeutic purposes, especially in the treatment of mental health conditions—USA, 1914—coined by essayist and Unitarian minister Samuel McChord Crothers (1857-1927)
Read MoreUK, 1914: an apparent ability to sense or intuit the presence of nearby spiders—USA, 1963, in reference to Spider-Man: a supernatural ability or power to perceive things beyond the normal range of human senses
Read Morea state of depression or despair—1893—a shift in meaning of the British-English expression ‘blue funk’, denoting a state of extreme nervousness or dread (the original meaning in American English)
Read More(derogatory) a person who is prone to exaggeratedly dramatic behaviour—UK, 1978
Read MoreUK—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 Moreto acknowledge merit or achievement when it is deserved, even if one is reluctant to do so—UK, 1783
Read Moreto 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 Morea 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 Moredepression 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)
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