“ad fontes!”
USA, 1913—a small structure placed at the centre of a road junction which allows vehicles travelling in different directions to cross the junction safely at the same time by driving around the device in the same direction
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USA, 1949—a person (originally and chiefly a girl or a woman) who is especially talkative—popularised from 1960 onwards by a proprietary name for a child’s talking doll manufactured by Mattel
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UK, 1869—a mechanised full-size model of a bull, simulating the movement and behaviour of a bull (particularly in a corrida), used in public entertainments
Read More1988, Australia & USA—apathy, indifference or mental exhaustion arising from exposure to too much information—especially stress induced by the attempt to assimilate excessive amounts of information from the media, the Internet or at work
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UK, 1929—a small camera for taking informal photographs of persons, usually without their knowledge—earlier occurrences (UK & USA, from 1907 to 1924) are often of unclear meaning
Read MoreAustralia, 1948—a period allocated for private conversation, especially between women on isolated stations, over an outback radio network—by extension (1967): any long chat—‘galah’: a very common Australian cockatoo
Read Moreto reach, or to be in, a state of extreme privation; to suffer hardship; to die, especially of thirst—New Zealand (miners, 1871) & Australia (1881)
Read Morea Volkswagen car—USA, 1967—from the pronunciation of ‘VW’ (initialism from the name ‘Volkswagen’)—‘dub’: shortened form of the adjective ‘double’ in ‘double U’
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1990—a street in which many satellite dishes are attached to the front of the buildings—‘satellite dish’: a bowl-shaped antenna used to view satellite television
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France—1883: Viennese-style baked goods—1887: a bakery that makes and sells this type of baked goods—those baked goods were introduced into France in 1839 by the Austrian entrepreneur August Zang
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word histories 