the colonial origin of ‘kidnap’
original meaning of ‘kidnap’, late 17th century—to steal or carry off children or others in order to provide servants or labourers for the American plantations
Read MoreTag: Thomas Middleton
origin of ‘maudlin’
‘maudlin’: tearfully sentimental – from the Middle-English name ‘Maudelen’, designating Mary Magdalene, a follower of Jesus, customarily represented as weeping
Read Moreone man’s meat is another man’s poison
RAILWAY MANIA. WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY ALFRED CROWQUILL. Railway Speculation has become the sole object of the world—cupidity is aroused, and roguery shields itself under its name, as a more safe and rapid way of gaining its ends. Abroad as well as at home, has it proved the rallying point of all rascality—the honest […]
Read Moregrimalkin
In The Tragedie of Macbeth (around 1603), by the English poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Gray-Malkin is the name of a fiend in the shape of a grey she-cat, the cat being the form most generally assumed by the familiar spirits of witches according to a common superstition: (Folio 1, 1623) […]
Read Morefag end
MEANINGS – the last part of something, especially when regarded as less important or interesting – British, informal: a cigarette end ORIGIN The obsolete adjective flag, attested in the late 16th century, meant flabby, hanging down. It was either an onomatopoeic formation or, via Middle French flac, from Latin […]
Read Morethe multiple meanings and origins of ‘P’s and Q’s’
Sexual puns in 17th-century English theatre explain several meanings of ‘P’s and Q’s’.
Read More