‘gory details’: meaning and origin
informal and often humorous: denotes the explicit or most intimate details of something—originally (USA, 1859) referred to accounts or representations of acts of violence and bloodshed
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‘william-nilliam’: meaning and origin
1907—whether one likes it or not; haphazardly—a humorous variant of ‘willy-nilly’, after the personal name ‘William’ (‘William’ being familiarly shortened to ‘Willy’)
Read More‘parting shot’ | ‘Parthian shot’
‘parting shot’ (1817); ‘Parthian shot’ (1822): a sharp, telling remark, act, gesture, etc., made in departing—‘parting shot’: literally the final shot fired at the moment of departure—‘Parthian shot’: refers to the Parthian horsemen’s habit of shooting arrows backwards while in real or pretended retreat
Read More‘that dog won’t hunt’: meaning and origin
USA, 1843—With reference to a dog used for hunting game, this phrase is used to express the opinion that a particular plan or approach will not succeed.
Read More‘lead in one’s pencil’: meaning and origin
USA, 1927—denotes male vigour, especially sexual—with wordplay on ‘penis’—interestingly, via an alteration of the Latin diminutive ‘pēnĭcillus’, denoting literally a little tail, hence a painter’s brush or pencil, ‘pencil’ is derived from Latin ‘pēnis’, denoting literally a tail, hence the penis
Read More‘open and shet, sign o’ more wet’: meaning and origin
USA (New England), 1868—alternately sunny and cloudy conditions usually indicate rain—the adjective ‘shet’ is a variant of ‘shut’—it was perhaps in order to provide a rhyme for the adjective ‘wet’ that the variant ‘shet’ was chosen in the proverb
Read Morean Australian use of ‘boots under the bed’
has been used to denote evidence of a de facto relationship affecting a woman’s eligibility for Social-Security benefits—refers to past practices of field officers inspecting homes and bedrooms
Read More‘lead balloon’: meaning and origin
USA, 1933—a failure, an unsuccessful venture—especially used of suggestions, jokes, etc., made in public—the image is of a balloon made of lead plummeting to the ground
Read More‘to judge a book by its cover’: meaning and origin
USA, 1837—to make assumptions about someone or something based on appearance or on superficial characteristics—the metaphor occurs in the preface to ‘Truth in Fiction: Or, Morality in Masquerade. A Collection of Two hundred twenty five Select Fables of Æsop, and other Authors’ (London, 1708), by Edmund Arwaker
Read More‘bread-artist’: meaning and origin
an artist or writer who produces what is considered to be inferior work simply to earn a living—loan translation from German ‘Brotkünstler’—first used in 1827 by Scottish historian and political philosopher Thomas Carlyle in a text about German literature
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