‘Château Plonk’: meaning and origin

22nd Sep 2022.Reading time 8 minutes.

wine, especially cheap wine of inferior quality—UK, 1973—from ‘château’ (as used in names of expensive wines of superior quality made at vineyard estates) and ‘plonk’, denoting cheap wine of inferior quality

‘excuse-me dance’: meaning and early occurrences

21st Sep 2022.Reading time 11 minutes.

UK and Ireland—a dance in which one may supersede a partner—first recorded in 1923—but the expression ‘excuse-me waltz’ had occurred in 1922

‘imbuggerance’ (absolute indifference)

20th Sep 2022.Reading time 6 minutes.

Particularly in Australian English, with reference to the phrase ‘not to care a bugger’, meaning ‘not to care at all’, the noun ‘imbuggerance’, also ‘embuggerance’, denotes ‘absolute indifference’.

‘to pull out all the stops’: meaning and origin

19th Sep 2022.Reading time 11 minutes.

to do everything possible to achieve a result or effect—UK, 1865 (as ‘to pull out a few more stops’)—alludes to pulling out all the stops of an organ in order to produce a full and thrilling sound

‘to come to a sticky end’: meaning and early occurrences

18th Sep 2022.Reading time 7 minutes.

to die, or to come to grief, in violent or exceptionally unpleasant circumstances—Australia, 1897—here, the adjective ‘sticky’ means ‘unpleasant’

‘leather and prunella’: meaning and origin

17th Sep 2022.Reading time 12 minutes.

something of no value, something to which one is utterly indifferent—UK, 1785—derives from a misinterpretation of “Worth makes the Man, and Want of it the Fellow;/The rest, is all but Leather or Prunella.” in An Essay on Man (1734), by Alexander Pope

‘poacher turned gamekeeper’: meaning and origin

15th Sep 2022.Reading time 8 minutes.

a person who now preserves the interests that he or she previously attacked—UK, 19th century—but the notion occurred in Chaucer’s Physician’s Tale and ‘the greatest deer-stealers make the best park-keepers’ in The Church-History of Britain (1655)

‘to paint the Forth Bridge’: meaning and origin

10th Sep 2022.Reading time 11 minutes.

used of any never-ending or arduous task—UK, 1923—alludes to the huge task of maintaining the painted surfaces of the railway bridge over the Firth of Forth, in central Scotland

‘Kensington Gore’ (as applied to artificial blood)

9th Sep 2022.Reading time 12 minutes.

UK, 1971—a pun on ‘Kensington Gore’, the name of a thoroughfare in London, and on the noun ‘gore’, denoting blood shed from a wound—it is unclear whether ‘Kensington Gore’ (as applied to artificial blood) was originally a trademark

‘Iron Weathercock’ (as applied to Liz Truss)

6th Sep 2022.Reading time 4 minutes.

UK, 2022— translates French ‘girouette de fer’—a derisive nickname for Liz Truss, in reference both to ‘Iron Lady’ (a nickname for Margaret Thatcher) and to Liz Truss’s changing views on a variety of subjects

word histories

Tag: phrases