‘oojah’: meanings (and origin?)
UK, 1917—used when one cannot think of, or does not wish to use, the name of a thing; by extension, a useful implement, a gadget—origin unknown
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‘plus-fours and no breakfast’: meaning and origin
UK, 1930—used of a man who pretends to be well-off despite having little money—the image is of a man of limited means who spends what he has on smart clothes, and therefore cannot afford any breakfast
Read More‘to have a tiger by the tail’: meaning and origin
UK, 1826—to find oneself in a situation that has turned out to be difficult to control but cannot be got out of—the image is that someone holding a tiger by the tail can neither keep hold of it nor let go of it with safety
Read More‘the big smoke’: meanings and origins
Australian English, 1848: any urban area (said to be of Aboriginal origin)—Irish and British English, 1862: Dublin and London—alludes to smoke as characteristic of an urban area
Read More‘the river that flows upside down’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1944—jocular—denotes the Yarra River, which flows through Melbourne, Victoria—alludes to the brownish colour of this river, the image being that the mud is on the top, not at the bottom, of this river
Read More‘to beat Banagher’: meaning and origin
to surpass everything—Ireland, 1821—probably refers to a strong military fort at Banagher, a town in County Offaly, in the province of Leinster, Ireland
Read More‘red on the map’ | ‘to paint the map red’: meanings and origin
UK, 19th century—‘red on the map’: the colonies and dominions of the British Empire—‘to paint the map red’: to expand the territory of the British Empire—from the colour used to represent British colonies and dominions on maps
Read More‘toffee-nosed’: meaning and origin
UK, 1914—snobbish or supercilious—refers perhaps to ‘toff’, denoting a fashionable upper-class person—the image is perhaps of someone who, considering themself superior, keeps their nose high in contempt for the lower classes—cf. the form ‘toffy-nosed’ (1919)
Read More‘hewer of wood and drawer of water’: meaning and origin
1727—a labourer of the lowest kind—refers to the enslavement of the Gibeonites by the Israelites in the Book of Joshua, 9:21-27, as it occurs in the King James Bible (1611)
Read More‘grease monkey’: meaning and origin
USA, 1918—a mechanic—since the 17th century, ‘monkey’ has been used (frequently with modifying word indicating the occupation concerned) to denote a person engaged in a trade or profession
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