‘to stick out a mile’: meaning and origin
New Zealand, 1883, as ‘to stick out half a mile’—to be very prominent or conspicuous
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‘one might hear a pin drop’ | ‘one can hear a pin drop’
‘one might hear a pin drop’ (UK, 1739): the silence and sense of expectation are intense—‘one can hear a pin drop’ (UK, 1737): one has a keen sense of hearing
Read More‘Deirdre spectacles’: meaning and origin
UK, 1981—a pair of spectacles with an oversized frame of a style that was fashionable in the 1980s—refers to the spectacles worn by Deirdre Barlow, a fictional character in the soap opera Coronation Street
Read More‘prophet of doom’: meanings and origin
UK, 1809—a person who predicts disaster, a doomsayer—also: a person who is (especially unduly) pessimistic about the future
Read More‘Baedeker raid’: meaning and origin
one of the German air raids in 1942 on places of cultural and historical importance in Britain—from ‘Baedeker’: any of a series of guidebooks to foreign countries, issued by the German publisher Karl Baedeker (1801-1859) and his successors
Read More‘common-or-garden’: meanings and origin
16th century: a plant of the most familiar or frequently occurring kind, especially one that is cultivated—hence, figuratively, 19th century: something ordinary or usual for its type
Read More‘to make a pig’s ear of something’: meaning and origin
UK—the noun ‘pig’s ear’ is colloquially used to designate a mess, a botched job—probably a euphemism for ‘pig’s arse’
Read More‘pig in the middle’: meanings and origin
UK—a ball game for three players, in which the middle player tries to intercept the ball as it passes between the other two—hence: a person, party, etc., caught between others in a conflict, dispute, etc.
Read More‘to hitch one’s wagon to a star’: meanings and origin
USA, 1862—coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson: to set oneself high aspirations—later also: to advance one’s ambitions by associating oneself with somebody more successful or powerful
Read More‘splendid isolation’: meanings and origin
UK, 1860: used specifically of the political and commercial uniqueness or isolation of the United Kingdom—but used earlier, more generally, in reference to being cut off from one’s kind or from the rest of the world
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