‘kiss-me-quick’ (bonnet): meaning and origin
mid-19th century—a small bonnet standing far back on the head, which was then fashionable—also occasionally in the extended form ‘kiss-me-quick, mother’s coming’
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‘telenovela’: meaning and origin
a Latin-American television soap opera—from American-Spanish ‘tele-’ (in ‘televisión’) and ‘novela’ (‘a novel’)—1959 in American Spanish, 1961 in American English
Read More‘coffee royal’ | ‘café royale’: meaning and origin
a drink made from black coffee and brandy, cognac or other liquor—‘royale’ means: first-rate—‘café royale’ (USA, 1882): probably a Frenchification of earlier ‘coffee royal’
Read More‘kir royale’: meaning and origin
USA, 1974, as ‘royale kir’—a drink made from champagne, or sparkling white wine, and crème de cassis—from ‘kir’ (a drink made from dry white wine and crème de cassis) and ‘royale’ (first-rate)
Read More‘piehole’: meaning and origin
a person’s mouth—U.S. slang, 1983
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‘on the wrong/right side of history’: meanings and early occurrences
USA, 1888—at variance/in line with the (likely) thought, practice or judgement of the future; at odds/coincident with how commentators view (or are likely to view) an issue or action retrospectively
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‘perp walk’: meaning and origin
U.S. slang, 1986—a march into or out of a police car, courthouse, etc., that a person in police custody is made to perform for the benefit of the news media—‘perp’: shortening of ‘perpetrator’
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
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