‘drama queen’: meaning and origin
(derogatory) a person who is prone to exaggeratedly dramatic behaviour—UK, 1978
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‘wet blanket’: meanings and origin
literally (1618): a blanket dampened with water so as to extinguish a fire—figuratively (1775): a person or thing that has a subduing or inhibiting effect
Read More‘to put two and two together’: meaning and origin
to draw an obvious inference from available evidence—early 19th century—but ‘two and two make four’, used as as a paradigm of the obvious conclusion, is first recorded in the late 17th century
Read More‘truth is stranger than fiction’: meaning and origin
real events and situations are often more remarkable or incredible than those made up in fiction—first occurred as ‘truth is always strange, stranger than fiction’ in Don Juan (1823), by George Gordon Byron
Read More‘to swear like a trooper’: meaning and origin
to use a lot of swearwords—first used in 1713 by Joseph Addison—alludes to the fact that troopers (i.e., soldiers of low rank in the cavalry) had a reputation for coarse language and behaviour
Read More‘town and gown’: meaning and origin
1750—the non-academic inhabitants (‘town’) of a university city and the resident members of the university (‘gown’, denoting the distinctive costume of a member of a university)
Read More‘pipsqueak’: meanings and origin
a person or thing that is insignificant or contemptible—1910—originally (1900): a type of small high-velocity shell, with reference to the high-pitched sound of its discharge and flight
Read More‘blouson noir’: meaning and origin
in French contexts: a young person, especially a young man, belonging to a youth subculture of the 1950s and 1960s—UK, 1959—from the noun ‘blouson’ (a short jacket) and the adjective ‘noir’ (black)
Read More‘to throw someone under the bus’: meaning and origin
to abandon or betray someone in order to protect or advance one’s own interests—originally (British politics, 1971) ‘to push someone under a bus’—derived from ‘to walk under a bus’ (British politics, 1966)
Read More‘few and far between’: meanings and origin
scarce; infrequent; difficult to find or to come by—one early use in 1668—but popularised by the Irish author Thomas Campbell in The Pleasures of Hope (1799)
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