‘cradle Catholic’: meaning and origin
UK, 1930—one who is born into the Roman Catholic Church (i.e., a Catholic ‘from the cradle’)
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‘cut the cackle (and come to the horses)’: meaning and origin
‘stop talking (and get to the heart of the matter)’—UK, 1878—said to have been coined by circus proprietor Andrew Ducrow when apostrophising equestrian performers
Read More‘cakehole’: meaning and origin
a person’s mouth—British-Army slang, 1916
Read More‘milk moustache’: meaning and early occurrences
also ‘moustache of milk’—UK, 1872—a white residue, resembling a growth of hair above the upper lip, left after drinking milk
Read More‘donkey’s breakfast’: meanings and origin
UK, 1866, sailors’ slang: a straw mattress—Australia, 1884: a straw hat—in reference to donkeys’ diet
Read More‘history is but a fable agreed upon’: meaning and origin
1777, in a translation of a letter written by Voltaire in 1768—a loan translation from French ‘l’histoire n’est qu’une fable convenue’, first used in 1758 by the French philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius
Read More‘clerk of the weather’: meaning and origin
UK, 1812—an imaginary functionary humorously supposed to control the state of the weather—also ‘clerk of the weather office’
Read More‘Concordski’: meaning and origin
UK, 1965—humorous—the Soviet supersonic airliner Tupolev Tu-144—from ‘Concorde’, the name of an Anglo-French supersonic airliner, and the suffix ‘-ski’, in humorous imitation of Russian
Read More‘mauvaise langue’: meanings and origin
UK, 1822—a vituperative gossip, a scandalmonger; an evil or malicious tongue—a borrowing from French ‘mauvaise langue’ (literally ‘bad tongue’) of same significations
Read More‘goofy foot’: meaning and origin
one who rides a surfboard with the right foot forward instead of the left—USA, 1960 (as a verb)—here, ‘goofy’ seems to be related to prejudice against left-handedness and left-footedness
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