‘baby blues’: meaning and origin
depression suffered by a mother in the period following childbirth—USA, 1940, in Expectant Motherhood, by Nicholson Joseph Eastman—variant: ‘after-the-baby blues’ (USA, 1940)
Read MoreTag: pregnancy & motherhood
‘soccer mom’: meaning and origin
USA, 1973—a suburban mother who spends a lot of time taking her children to play soccer or engage in similar activities—popularised during the presidential election campaign of 1996 as designating an influential voting bloc
Read More‘mother’s ruin’: meaning and origin
UK, 1904—denotes gin (i.e., a clear alcoholic spirit distilled from grain or malt and flavoured with juniper berries)—‘mother’s ruin’ alludes to the evils caused by the consumption of gin
Read More‘motherhood and apple pie’: meaning and origin
USA, 1956—denotes a core principle, value, belief, characteristic, aspect, etc., of the U.S.A. or its citizens—more generally, the nouns ‘motherhood’ and ‘apple pie’ have been juxtaposed in enumerations of things and persons exemplifying U.S. values
Read More‘in the pudding club’: meaning and origin
UK, 1890—pregnant—refers to “the bulging puddinglike appearance of a pregnant woman”
Read More‘thank your mother for the rabbit(s)’: meanings and early occurrences
UK and Ireland, since 1913—this jocular phrase has been used as an ironic expression of gratitude and as a goodbye
Read More‘dead and never called me mother’: meaning and origin
used to characterise melodrama—from the words said over her dead child by Lady Isabel in East Lynne (1874), T. A. Palmer’s stage play adapted from the 1861 novel by the English author Mrs. Henry Wood (Ellen Price)
Read More‘your mother wears army boots’: meaning, origin (?), and early occurrences
USA, 1947—a mild insult perhaps alluding to impecuniousness—seems to have originated amongst teenagers and young adults
Read Morea male-chauvinistic phrase: ‘barefoot(ed) and pregnant’
USA, 1938—male-chauvinistic phrase meaning that the place of women is in the home and that their role is to bear children—also ‘pregnant and barefoot(ed)’
Read More‘look (mum, or ma), no hands!’: meaning and origin
used of something done cleverly—British and American—originated as the proud exclamation of a child riding a bicycle with no hands on the handlebars
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word histories 