“ad fontes!”
denotes extreme quickness of movement—the use of ‘greased’ likens lightning to a machine that a mechanic has lubricated in order to minimise the friction and make it run easily
Read Morefirst recorded in The Biglow Papers (1848), by American author James Russell Lowell—based on the notion of leaving one’s hat behind in a rush of impetuosity
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to be insane—late 19th century—originated in the fact that in 19th-century productions of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, Ophelia appeared with straws in her hair in her ‘mad scene’
Read More‘a snowball’s chance in hell’: no chance at all (USA, 1880)—elliptically, ‘a snowball’s chance’ (USA, 1895)—in the 1880s, ‘a snowball in hell’ was also used as a term of comparison to denote something that disappears rapidly
Read Moremeaning: ‘thoroughly dejected or disappointed’—appeared (1973) in Tyne and Wear (north-eastern England)—originated apparently in football parlance, in which it soon became a cliché
Read Morerobotically conformist or obedient—from The Stepford Wives (1972 novel by Ira Levin and 1975 film adaptation by Bryan Forbes), in which Stepford is the name of a superficially idyllic suburb where the men have replaced their wives with obedient robots
Read MoreUSA, 1930—‘to crawl, or to come, out of the woodwork’: of an unpleasant or unwelcome person or thing, to come out of hiding, to emerge from obscurity; the image is of vermin or insects crawling out of crevices or other hidden places in a building
Read MoreOriginally, the mother was the object of ‘deliver’, the image was of delivering (freeing) her from the burden of pregnancy. Nowadays, the healthcare provider or the mother is the subject, the image is of delivering (handing over) the baby, as if it were a package.
Read MoreFirst recorded in 1694, ‘Peg Tantrum’ was chiefly used in the phrase ‘to go to Peg Trantum’s’, meaning ‘to go to one’s death’. This word is perhaps from ‘Peg’, rhyming form of ‘Meg’, pet form of the female forenames ‘Margery’ and ‘Margaret’, and from ‘tantrum’.
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Swiss-French ‘crestin’ (= ‘Christian’): in certain valleys of the Alps, a mentally deficient, deformed person suffering from a congenital thyroid deficiency
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