UK, 1849—transformation into a pumpkin; extravagant or absurdly uncritical glorification—coined after Hellenistic Greek ‘ἀποκολοκύντωσις’, the title of a travesty ascribed to Seneca, according to which the deceased Roman emperor Claudius, instead of being elevated to divine status, is changed into a pumpkin
Read Moreto praise oneself—first used by Benjamin Franklin in 1729—the image is that, when one’s trumpeter is dead, one is forced to find one’s own trumpet
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UK, 1869—used to denounce arbitrariness—alludes to a demand by the Queen of Hearts during the trial of the Knave of Hearts in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
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the drawing of the ‘Gerry-mander’ and the accompanying text—as published in the Boston Gazette (Boston, Massachusetts) of 26 March 1812
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UK, 1789—aided by alliteration, arose from a long-established figurative use of ‘brass’, sometimes in association with ‘bold’
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17th century—allusion to the Aeneid, by Virgil, in which the Sybil throws a drugged cake to Cerberus, the monstrous dog guarding the entrance to Hades
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refers to the rarity of white elephants and to the story that the king of Pegu waged war on the king of Siam, who had refused to sell him one
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1696—perhaps from ‘latet anguis in herba’ (a snake hides in the grass) in Virgil’s Eclogues—cf. ‘a pad [= toad] in the straw’ and French ‘il y a de l’oignon’
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The verb ‘immolate’ is from Latin ‘immolare’, meaning, literally, ‘to sprinkle (a victim) with sacrificial meal’, from ‘mola salsa’, ‘salted spelt-meal’.
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the 1905 edition of Le Petit Larousse illustré, a French-language encyclopaedic dictionary published by the Éditions Larousse In 1890, Eugène Grasset (1845-1917) designed the image of la Semeuse (the Sower) blowing dandelion seeds, which accompanies the motto of the Éditions Larousse, Je sème à tout vent (I sow to the four winds). The word […]
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