“ad fontes!”
soldiers regarded simply as material to be expended in war—‘cannon fodder’ (1847), said to have been coined after German ‘Kanonenfutter’—French ‘chair à canon’ (1814), first used in reference to Napoléon Bonaparte
Read MoreUSA, 2019, derogatory—people (regarded as elitist and pretentious) who are alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice—a blend of the adjective ‘woke’ and of the noun ‘literati’
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a vehicle which travels on a cushion of air—UK, 1958, apparently coined by engineer Christopher Sydney Cockerell—also, USA, 1958, in the sense of “a flying car”
Read Moreused as an interjection to assert truthfulness, honour or sincerity—USA, 1851, as ‘honest Indian’—perhaps alludes to the fact that, in their past interactions with Europeans, Native Americans had to give assurance of their good faith
Read MoreUK, 1815—to abandon a person or undertaking hastily, especially when they become controversial or difficult to handle, as a hot potato is
Read Morea person with facial acne—Californian high-school slang, 1963—in this expression, the pimples caused by facial acne are likened to slices of pepperoni on a pizza
Read Moreto criticise or attack somebody aggressively or decisively; to target an adversary’s weakest or most vulnerable point—USA, 1879—the image is of attacking a person fatally in the throat or neck, where the jugular vein runs
Read Moreto go away and stop being a nuisance—chiefly used in the imperative as a contemptuous dismissal—USA, 1883—the image is of somebody jumping into a lake and drowning
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extremely large, huge, enormous—USA, 1967—of uncertain origin; probably a factitious adjective coined on the suffix ‘-ous’, influenced by ‘hugeous’ and ‘monstrous’, and perhaps by the stress-patterns of ‘stupendous’, ‘tremendous’, etc.
Read Morea woman who had no qualities other than attractiveness, with connotations of low intelligence, or of flightiness, or of low social status and poverty—second half of the 19th century, chiefly in stories by women writers
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