“ad fontes!”
USA, 1811—based on the three principal components that make up a flintlock gun: ‘lock’ denotes the firing mechanism, ‘stock’ the handle or wooden shoulder-piece to which it is attached, and ‘barrel’ the tube down which the bullet is fired
Read MoreU.S., 1876—‘bulldozers’: members or supporters of the Democratic Party who used threats and acts of violence in order to prevent Afro-Americans from voting for Republican candidates
Read MoreThe literal meaning of ‘rocket science’ (USA, 1930) is the science of rockets and rocket propulsion—in the 1980s, in connexion with sports, it came to be used ironically as a generic term for anything requiring a high level of intelligence or expertise.
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The noun ‘easel’ was borrowed from Dutch ‘ezel’; this sense of ‘ezel’ is a metaphorical extension of its literal meaning, ‘ass’, from the fact that, like a beast of burden, an easel is used to carry things. Likewise, the literal meaning of the synonymous French word ‘chevalet’ is ‘little horse’.
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‘Hobby’, diminutive of ‘Hob’, pet form of ‘Robert’, was used to denote a small horse, hence a child’s toy with a horse’s head, hence a favourite occupation—cf. French ‘dada’, child’s word for horse, used to denote a favourite pastime
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some characteristic slang creations of the British, U.S. and French soldiers during World War One, as recorded in ‘Trench Talk’, published in Everybody’s Magazine (New York) of January 1918
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‘flash in the pan’: originally referred to the priming gunpowder flaring up in the flash-pan without then exploding the main charge in the barrel of a firearm
Read Moreperhaps identical to ‘pie’ (‘magpie’)—variety of ingredients maybe associated with bird’s spotted appearance or its tendency to collect miscellaneous articles
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The word ‘folklore’ was coined in 1846 by the British author William John Thoms, inspired by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s anthology of German fairy tales.
Read More‘with minute exactness’—UK, 1693—probably a shortening of synonymous ‘to a tittle’ (1607), ‘tittle’ meaning ‘a small mark used in writing or printing’
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word histories 