‘the rough end of the pineapple’: meaning and origin
‘the rough end of the pineapple’: harsh or unfair treatment—said to be an Australian phrase, but may have originated in the USA in the mid-20th century
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meaning and origin of ‘everything but the kitchen sink’
The phrase ‘everything but the kitchen sink’, or ‘the kitchen stove’, and variants mean ‘practically everything imaginable’—origin: USA, early 20th century
Read Morethe colonial origin of the word ‘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 Morethe story of the fedora
US, 1883—from the craze generated by ‘Fédora’, an 1882 drama by Victorien Sardou and the name of its heroine, played in early productions by Sarah Bernhardt
Read Morethe various meanings of ‘to fly a kite’
to get credit or money by using a fraudulent financial instrument; to send an illicit or secret note; to find out in what direction affairs are tending
Read Moreorigin of the word ‘geek’
19th century, northern England—apparently a variant of ‘geck’, of Germanic origin, meaning ‘a fool’, ‘a dupe’, ‘an oaf’
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘Pooh-Bah’
from the name of a character who holds many high offices in ‘The Mikado’ (1885), an operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘King Charles’s head’
obsession—from Dickens’s ‘David Copperfield’, in which Mr. Dick is unable to write his memoirs because of the intrusive image of King Charles the First’s head
Read Moreorigin of ‘up the river’ (to prison)
US, 19th cent.—‘to send up the river’ (to send to prison)—originally referred to Sing Sing prison, situated up the Hudson River from the city of New York
Read More‘To sell down the river’ originated in the history of American slavery.
This phrase originated in the history of American slavery: the river was the Mississippi and down implied the transfer of slaves from north to south.
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word histories 