“ad fontes!”
1992—the culture shock experienced by an individual (typically a Japanese) who, when visiting, or living in, Paris, realises that this city does not fulfil their idealised expectations—apparently a loan translation from Japanese ‘Pari shōkōgun’, coined by Japanese psychiatrist Hiroaki Ōta
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‘impressionist’ (1875) from French ‘impressionniste’ (1874)—a painter who was an exponent of ‘impressionism’ (1877), a movement in painting developed in France in the last third of the 19th century—French ‘impressionnisme’ may have been coined in 1858
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circa 1900: by association with the reputed ferocity of the North-American Indian people, ‘Apache’ came to designate a violent street ruffian in Paris
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originally the sky-blue ribbon worn by the Knights-grand-cross of the French order of the Holy Ghost—applied by extension to other first-class distinctions
Read Morenot originally coined because of the connotation of explosiveness, but because of the connotations of pleasure, beauty and tininess
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UK, 1848—people of various professions; people of all kinds—alludes to ‘Rub a dub dub’, a nursery rhyme of the late 18th century
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
Read Moreprimary meaning of ‘boggle’ was ‘to start with fright’, originally with reference to horses—probably related to the nouns ‘bogle’ and ‘bogey’, denoting an evil spirit such as horses are reputed to see
Read Moreused with reference to a conventional or idealised romance—originated (USA, 1931) in cinematographic plot summaries in which ‘boy meets girl’ featured
Read MoreUK, 1832—‘the awkward age’: the adolescence, when one is no longer a child but not yet properly grown up, a time of life characterised by physical and emotional changes—translates in French as ‘l’âge ingrat’, ‘the thankless age’
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word histories 