“ad fontes!”
UK, 1918—a malediction, typically uttered as a parting shot after a quarrel—seems to have originated as one child’s threat to another—the reason the word ‘rabbit’ was chosen is unknown
Read MoreUK, 1785—has been used to address a red-haired person—sometimes followed by the retort ‘there’s enough water in yours to put it out’ and variants
Read MoreUSA, 1979—the children’s ability to pressurise their parents into buying something, or doing something for them, by continuing to ask for it until their parents agree to do it—originally referred to television advertising targeting children
Read MoreUK—1879 “where the monkey put the shells”—1892 “where the monkey put the nuts”—with reference to the anus, this slang phrase expresses contemptuous rejection
Read MoreUK, 1890—the dated jocular exclamations ‘my giddy aunt!’, ‘my sainted aunt!’, etc., express surprise, consternation, etc.—they are extended forms of the exclamation ‘my aunt!’
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1941 in the sense ‘under the influence of alcohol’—aided by the phonetic similarity of ‘grip’ and ‘grape’, this phrase has, in the course of time, been coined on separate occasions by various persons, independently from one another
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Australia, 1944—to the greatest possible extent; sated with food—refers to a large floppy bow worn at the neck
Read MoreAustralia, 1909—to the greatest possible extent; sated with food—dolls used to have modelled wax heads with a neck shaped so that it could be sewn to a stuffed rag body
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Australia, 1940—means ‘speedily’—refers to the tram service between Sydney, New South Wales, and Bondi Beach, a popular beach located 4 miles east of Sydney city centre
Read MoreAustralia, 1888—defined by Wilkes in A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms (1990) as “An imaginary rich uncle overseas, backing some venture in which the unwary may be persuaded to invest.”
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word histories 