‘to be economical with the truth’: meaning and origin
Ireland, 1832—particularly associated with Lord Robert Armstrong and the ‘Spycatcher’ trial (1986)—‘economy of truth’ was used in 1796 by Edmund Burke
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‘to be economical with the actualité’: meaning and origin
UK, 1992—coined by Alan Clark during the Matrix Churchill trial—variant of ‘to be economical with the truth’, meaning: to deceive people by deliberately not telling them the whole truth about something
Read More‘to meet one’s Waterloo’: meaning and origin
to be utterly defeated—alludes to the defeat of Napoléon I at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815—UK, 1832, as ‘to meet with a Waterloo’—USA, 1838, as ‘to meet one’s Waterloo’
Read More‘a blind bit of ——’: meaning and origin
UK, 1922—used in negative constructions with a following noun to mean ‘a single ——’, ‘any ——’; the nouns most commonly used in those constructions are ‘notice’ and ‘difference’
Read More‘the second-oldest profession (in the world)’: meanings and origin
a profession which has long been established or which is regarded as having similarities with prostitution—also sometimes used jocularly—alludes to ‘the oldest profession in the world’ (i.e., prostitution)
Read More‘to be skating on thin ice’: meaning and origin
to court danger by behaving in an obviously risky manner that cannot be sustained for long—1841 in an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Read More‘zipper problem’: meaning and origin
a man’s habit of sexual promiscuity or infidelity—refers to the zipper on the flies of a pair of trousers—USA, 1982, originally used of Members of Congress in Washington, D.C., and recorded by gossip columnist Diana McLellan
Read More‘backstabbing’: meaning and origin
UK, 1803, as an adjective—UK, 1842, as a noun—in reference to the action or practice of attacking, or acting against, someone in a treacherous or underhand manner
Read More‘frontstabbing’: meaning and origin
Ireland, 1914—the action or practice of attacking, or acting against, someone in a candid or open manner, as opposed to deceptively or duplicitously—coined after ‘backstabbing’ (i.e., the action or practice of attacking, or acting against, someone in a treacherous or underhand manner)
Read More‘chumocracy’: meaning and origin
chiefly UK politics—a culture characterised by influential networks of close friends—from ‘chum’ (a close friend) and ‘‑ocracy’ (forming nouns designating forms of government or groups who exercise political or social power)
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