‘to embiggen’: meaning and origin
to make bigger or greater, to enlarge—UK, 1884, as a translation of ancient Greek ‘μεγαλύνειν’ as used in the Acts of the Apostles, 5:13—recoined in 1996 in the U.S. animated television series The Simpsons
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‘freedom fries’: meaning and origin
USA, 2003—Following France’s opposition to the proposed U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the expression ‘freedom fries’ was substituted for ‘French fries’. This, and other expressions in which ‘freedom’ was substituted for ‘French’, may have been coined almost simultaneously by various persons, independently from each other.
Read More‘cheese-eating/tea-drinking surrender monkeys’
‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’: the French people (USA, 1995) from The Simpsons—‘tea-drinking surrender monkeys’: the British people (Ireland, 2004)
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word histories 