‘rocking-chair job’: meaning and origin
USA—1901 as ‘rocking-chair work’—1907 as ‘rocking-chair job’—a sinecure, i.e., an office or position providing an income or other advantage but requiring little or no work
Read MoreTag: military
‘birth-control glasses’: meaning and origin
USA, 1986—ugly spectacles, in particular army-issue spectacles—the image is that those spectacles are so ugly that nobody would want to make a baby with somebody wearing a pair—also ‘BCGs’
Read More‘as scarce as rocking-horse manure’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1937—very scarce—‘rocking horse’: a toy horse mounted on rockers or springs for a child to sit on and rock to and fro—this phrase has come to be also used in British English and American English
Read More‘false dawn’: meanings and origin
1809—a transient light preceding the true dawn by about an hour, a phenomenon common in Eastern countries—translates Arabic ‘ṣubḥ kāḏib’—figuratively: a hopeful sign that can prove either illusory or authentic
Read More‘interview without coffee’: meaning and origin
UK, 1990—a British-Army euphemism for a severe reprimand by a senior officer—also, by extension, any ‘dressing-down’
Read More‘a shag on a rock’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1843—used as a type of the isolated, deprived or exposed—refers to a shag (i.e., a cormorant) perched alone on a rock
Read More‘to treat with ignore’: meaning and early occurrences
Australia, 1935—meaning: ‘to deliberately ignore someone’s presence, request, etc.’—has erroneously been said to have originated in army slang during the Second World War
Read More‘(as) cold as Pharaoh’s heart’: meaning and origin
USA, 1876—‘extremely cold’—cf. ‘as hard as Pharaoh’s heart’ (USA, 1829), meaning ‘extremely hard’—both phrases refer to the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in the Book of Exodus, 7:13-22
Read More‘hellzapoppin’’: meaning and origin
USA, 1896—one-word form representing a colloquial pronunciation of the phrase ‘hell’s a poppin’’ (1875)—meaning: ‘events are unfolding in a chaotic manner’; ‘a state of confusion and disarray is taking hold’—the verb ‘pop’ means ‘to suddenly break open’
Read More‘everything’s apples’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1941—‘apples’ is used in phrases such as ‘everything’s apples’, meaning ‘everything is all right’—perhaps from ‘apple-pie order’—may have originated in the Australian armed forces’ slang during World War II
Read More
word histories 