‘Hob Collingwood’: meaning and early occurrences
in the game of whist: the four of hearts, considered as an unlucky card—southeastern Scotland and northeastern England, early 19th century—origin unknown
Read MoreTag: phrases
‘a fly on the wheel’: meaning and origin
a person who overestimates their own influence—1661—alludes to the fable of a fly sitting on the axletree of a moving chariot and saying, “See what a dust I raise”
Read More‘clever clogs’: meaning and origin
a person who behaves as if he or she knows everything—UK, colloquial, 1860—the irony of the expression lies in the fact that clogs are mere functional pedestrian objects
Read Moreearly occurrences of ‘mother-in-law’s chair’ (i.e., cactus)
UK, 1951—‘mother-in-law’s chair’, ‘mother-in-law’s cushion’ and ‘mother-in-law’s seat’ are colloquial appellations for the globular spiny cactus Echinocactus grusonii, native to Mexico
Read More‘mother-in-law seat’: meaning and origin
an uncovered extra seat at the back or on the side of a two-seater motor car—USA, 1907
Read More‘mother-in-law joke’: meanings and origin
USA, 1874—a joke made at the expense of the joke-teller’s (real or fictitious) mother-in-law; this type of joke considered (especially depreciatively) as a genre
Read More‘skin and grief’: meaning and origin
British, 1771—as an adjective: emaciated; weak and starving—as a noun: an emaciated or starving person
Read More‘Mother of Parliaments’: meanings and origin
England; also: the British Parliament—UK, 1857—popularised in 1865 by the British politician John Bright
Read More‘Mrs Mop’: meaning and origin
a charwoman, a cleaning lady—UK, 1940—popularised in 1942 by the charwoman’s name in the BBC radio comedy series ‘It’s That Man Again’
Read More‘Mrs Dale-ish’: meaning and origin
conventionally middle-class—UK, 1953—from ‘Mrs Dale’, the name of a conventional middle-class woman in Mrs Dale’s Diary, a BBC radio serial broadcast from 1948 to 1969
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