“ad fontes!”
1906 (of a motor vehicle): to operate with maximum power, to function at its best—1907 (of a person or thing): to perform at peak level, to be on top form—conversely, 1910: ‘to miss/misfire on all cylinders’
Read MoreAmerican English, 1874—used in particular of stupidity, as in ‘dumb as a bag of hammers’ and variants—the underlying notion is probably that anything is dumb that does all the hard work
Read MoreUSA, 1977—petroleum, and any liquid derived from petroleum used in a vehicle powered by an internal-combustion engine—perhaps from popular association of ‘dinosaur’ with ‘fossil fuel’
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USA, 1955—a dummy used in vehicle safety tests to assess the effect of crashes, collisions, etc., on the driver and passengers of the vehicle—also, figuratively: a person or thing used as a test subject
Read Morea tachograph—coined in Manchester (England), in September 1968, by lorry drivers who opposed the proposed introduction of the tachograph into lorries
Read MoreUK, 1965—humorous—the Soviet supersonic airliner Tupolev Tu-144—from ‘Concorde’, the name of an Anglo-French supersonic airliner, and the suffix ‘-ski’, in humorous imitation of Russian
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1910s—a ship designed to carry submarines—likens the submarines carried in such ships to the immature young nursed in the abdominal pouch of female kangaroos
Read MoreUK & USA, early 20th century—used in a variety of meanings, among which: ‘a postcard on which the sender could leave the imprint of a kiss’, and ‘a brief statement about kissing’
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an uncovered extra seat at the back or on the side of a two-seater motor car—USA, 1907
Read Morea container used to store for posterity a selection of objects thought to be representative of a particular moment in time—USA, 1938—coined to specifically designate the container built by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company for the 1939 New York World’s Fair
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word histories 