origin of ‘skinflint’
attested 1699—from the hyperbolical phrase ‘to skin a flint’ (1656)—cf. ‘to skin a flea for its hide and tallow’ and French ‘tondre un œuf’ (‘to shave an egg’)
Read MoreTag: slang
the biblical name ‘Moab’ in public-school slang
In Psalms, the subjugated nation of Moab is compared to a vessel used for washing the feet—hence in school slang ‘Moab’: humorous for ‘washroom’, ‘tub’, ‘sink’
Read MoreEating in the Romance languages
In Latin, short words having complicated irregularities in their forms gave way to simpler words with regular patterns and longer phonetic individualities.
Read Morethe various meanings of ‘to fly a kite’
to get credit or money by using a fraudulent financial instrument; to send an illicit or secret note; to find out in what direction affairs are tending
Read More‘shiver my timbers’
British, 18th century—a mock oath attributed to sailors, meaning ‘may my ship’s beams be broken into pieces’—early variants used by Tobias Smollett
Read Moremeanings and origin of ‘kingdom come’
‘the next world’, hence also ‘death’, ‘utter destruction’—1752—a loose, originally slangy, use of the petition ‘Thy kingdom come’ in the ‘Lord’s Prayer’
Read Moreorigin of ‘to walk one’s chalks’
to go off—19th cent.—from a procedure consisting in making a person walk on a straight line drawn with chalk in order to establish whether they are inebriated
Read More‘beanfeast’, ‘beano’: meaning and origin
‘beano’, abbreviation of ‘beanfeast’: an enjoyable time; originally an annual dinner, given by employers to employees, or held by organisations or clubs
Read Moreorigin of ‘once in a blue moon’
‘Once in a blue moon’ is a development from ‘once in a moon’, meaning ‘once a month’, hence ‘occasionally’—‘blue’ is merely a meaningless fanciful intensive.
Read Moreto have a bee in one’s bonnet
This phrase is a transformation of ‘one’s head full of bees’, meaning scatter-brained, unable to think straight, as if bees are buzzing around in one’s head.
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