Tag: William Somerset Maugham

‘to have a béguin for’: meaning and origin

.Reading time 10 minutes.

‘to have a fancy for’—UK, 1900—loan translation from French ‘avoir un béguin pour’—French ‘béguin’ is from ‘s’embéguiner de’, meaning ‘to put on a bonnet’, hence ‘to put a sudden capricious idea into one’s head’

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‘“Hell!” said the duchess’: meanings and origin

.Reading time 14 minutes.

originated (1915) as the jocular beginning, destined to grip the reader’s attention, of a hypothetical novel or short story—soon (1919) came to be also used either without precise meaning or as a jocular exclamation

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