“ad fontes!”
USA, 1955—a dummy used in vehicle safety tests to assess the effect of crashes, collisions, etc., on the driver and passengers of the vehicle—also, figuratively: a person or thing used as a test subject
Read MoreUK, 1882—‘penny’ refers to inexpensiveness, and ‘puzzle’ to the mysterious nature of the ingredients—perhaps also in humorous allusion to ‘penny puzzle’ in the sense of a puzzle-card sold on the street for one penny
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also ‘in a wad’, ‘in a knot’, etc.—to become unduly agitated or angry—the plural noun ‘panties’ refers to short underpants worn by women or girls—American English, 1975
Read MoreUK, 1839—jocular variant of ‘penny-a-liner’ (i.e., a journalist who was paid at the rate of a penny a line, a person who produced mediocre journalistic work) with the implication that such journalists fabricated falsehoods
Read MoreUK, early 19th century, derogatory—used attributively of a journalist who was paid at the rate of a penny a line, hence also of low-quality writing
Read Moremid-19th century—a small bonnet standing far back on the head, which was then fashionable—also occasionally in the extended form ‘kiss-me-quick, mother’s coming’
Read Morea tachograph—coined in Manchester (England), in September 1968, by lorry drivers who opposed the proposed introduction of the tachograph into lorries
Read Moreto live in excessively close proximity or interdependence—1762: “the company squeezed themselves into one another’s pockets” in a letter by Horace Walpole
Read MoreCanada, 1985—one who is born into the Anglican Church (i.e., an Anglican ‘from the cradle’)
Read MoreUK, 1904—refers to the action of making someone stop chattering—from the colloquial imperative phrase ‘cut the cackle (and come to the horses)’, meaning: stop talking (and get to the heart of the matter)
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word histories 