Karen Hill

Who first used the expression Dilly Dally, or when, is not known; probably some harassed mother back in the sixteenth century, annoyed with the dalliance of a loitering son, or husband, made dally more emphatic by duplicating it with dilly. At least, the dilly prefix has no separate meaning of its own, any more than … Read more

Maybe the dog or horse with coat of the color that we call flea-bitten has been at some time infested with fleas, but, whether so or not, that is unessential. The color term originated back in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Some discerning groom or dog fancier saw that the reddish flecks on … Read more

Big Ben is is the great deep-toned bell which strikes the hours of the clock in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament, London. The tower carries five bells in all, the other four striking the quarter hours in the famed Westminster chimes. The great bell, weighing thirteen and a half tons, was cast … Read more

The term sub rosa means: under the rose; i.e., confidentially, in secrecy. Legend attributes the origin to a rose handed by Eros to Harpocrates, god of silence, accompanied with an injunction not to reveal the love affairs of Venus. Accordingly, in the customs of ancient councils, said to date back to the fifth century B.C., … Read more

One wonders whether coming generations will think that we, in this day of countless new inventions, have shown like imagination and poetry in the coining of names as that given to our early forebears. It does not so appear. Certainly not in such words as telephone, automobile, airplane, radio, television, electric refrigerator. But consider the … Read more

You may spell the word “Gantry” gauntry if you like, or even gauntree, but the present preference is gantry. Nowadays the chief application of the name is to a traveling crane, a wonderfully ingenious device mounted on overhead rails in machine shops or the like by which the operator is able to hoist and transport … Read more

In Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia (1788) he says that the instrument we know as the Banjo is “proper to the blacks, which they brought hither from Africa, and which is the original of the guitar, the chords being precisely the four lower chords of the guitar.” But your dictionaries tell that banjo is probably … Read more

There has been a great deal of controversy, which has still not been resolved, over the origin of the word “Skedaddle”, and even some difference of opinion as to whether it was born in England or in America. The earliest recorded use for the American skedaddle, “to flee precipitously,” that has been found is 1861, … Read more

We take into our speech words from all manners of strange sources. Thus when Canadian and American reached the Chinook tribes dwelling north of the Columbia River in the far West, they adopted many terms known to all the tribes, combining them sometimes with French and English words. Among the Indian phrases, according to Charles … Read more

“Chucklehead” has the same meaning as chowderhead, but the first element is from the dialectal word chuck, meaning “a chunk,” such as “a chunk of coal; a chunk of bread,” any lump, that is, which is of irregular size.

Pinkeye designates an inflamed eye, but pink-stern has nothing to do with color. It names a type of small boat, one with its stern shaped like that of a sailing vessel known as a pink or pinky. Both names are corrupted from the Middle Dutch pincke, first applied to a flat-bottom sailing vessel which was … Read more

One’s immediate interpretation of the sense of the word “Highbinder” is largely sectional. In eastern America it is associated with a ruffian, a gangster, and that was its earliest application, a member of a gang of rowdies in New York City who, in 1806, called themselves Highbinders. But, especially in California and later in New … Read more

In its earliest sense, as in Shakespeare’s day, the word “Madcap” meant simply one who was crazy, a maniac. Cap, just because it covered the head, was sometimes used for “head,” and mad, used literally, meant “crazy.” Of course it was also used, and still is, somewhat playfully, in describing one who acted impulsively or … Read more

The best we can do is to say “probably.” That is, the term “Hubbub” for a confused din, an uproar of sound from a multitude of voices, was probably taken from an ancient Irish war cry. The cry itself appears to have been abu! abu!, repeated over and over from the throats of yelling hordes. … Read more

The Flittermouse isn’t a mouse, for it has wings, and mice don’t. But it does fly rather swiftly and dartingly, so it can be said to flitter, and being a mammal with a body not unlike that of a mouse in size, and sometimes in color, it is not surprising that this creature was known … Read more

Just why the gate, once an entrance to the old city of London, was known as Billings, even back in the thirteenth century, cannot be determined. Presumably that was the name of its builder, but Newcourt’s map of the city in 1658 says the gate was “Founded by Belen ye 23th Brittishe Kinge.” At any … Read more

The expression “Bandy Legged” means bowlegged; having the legs shaped for greater comfort in riding a horse, parenthesis-fashion. The term probably arose, back in the seventeenth century, through a comparison of legs so shaped with the curved stick, then called a “bandy,” in the game of hockey as then played.

He, or quite often she, frequently a child or street Arab, gathers a living from the gutter, or less literally, from discarded rags, trash, or other refuse, including food. His mode of living, that is, resembles that of the snipe which pokes its bill into the mud lining a body of water for its food. … Read more

Our English forebears just partly anglicized a German term back in the sixteenth century. The word that came to them was klappholt, in which holt (modern Holz) meant “wood, board,” and klapp apparently referred to the clacking sound from boards smacking together. This klappholt and the early clapboard was used by coopers in making casks … Read more

A tropical American plant now cultivated commercially for the nutritious starch obtained from the root. The name, however, according to Sir Hans Sloane, a British naturalist who wrote of this plant in 1696 in his catalogue of Jamaican plants, arose from its use by Indians to counteract the effect of poisoned arrows. “But,” says the … Read more

Many sources have been suggested for the Americanism “Shenanigan”, which seems to have been originated in California during or soon after the Gold Rush. The first recorded use was in that state in 1855. As the word has the sense of “trickery, deceit,” most possible sources suggested have had similar meanings, such as the Spanish … Read more

We are so accustomed to the term “Knickerbockers” that we can scarcely realize it is barely a hundred years old. It seems that it must date back to the days of Peter Stuyvesant, when the Dutchmen on Manhattan Island all wore flaring breeches now called knickerbockers. But, though the name of this garment is often … Read more

The ancient Greek physicians believed that there were four humors, or primary fluids, which governed the body, the blood, or sanguis; the yellow bile, or chole; the black bile, or melas chole (giving our word melancholy); and the phlegm, or phlegma. A superabundance of chole in one’s system was supposed to cause that individual to … Read more

In early colonial days there were both poverty and hard work, the work being of such a nature that cuts, bruises, and blows could well have been the daily fare of our forebears. When the injury was to the shin, it was usual to apply a poultice of sorts, and, among the poorer classes, this … Read more

That’s what the Pinafore was; “pinned afore,” pinned at the front (of a dress). The item pinned was some sort of wash material which served as an apron or bib to protect the front of a child’s dress, a dress then worn by either girl or boy child. That was back in the latter part … Read more

Though it’s a loud blusterer to whom we give the name now, Blunderbuss was formerly, from the mid-seventeenth century, a short gun of large bore and short range which scattered many slugs or balls. The Dutch, who invented it, called it, accurately enough, dunderbus, “thunder tube,” because of its noisy firing. The English in adopting … Read more

Derived from the Latin adjective Stygius, from the Greek Stygios, all are related to the River Styx, that river in Greek mythology which separated the land of the living from Hades, the land of the dead. The name of the river is closely related to the Greek adjective stygnos, “hateful, gloomy,” and this, too, is … Read more

Any Scot can tell you that the term doch-an-doris has the same meaning as “stirrup cup,” and is literally “a drink at the door,” that is, a parting drink. Sometimes it is written doch-an-dorach, but in any case it represents the Gaelic deoch, “drink,” an “the,” and doruis, “door.”

The Americanism “shyster” was probably coined early in the nineteenth century, since its first recorded use, as cited in the Dictionary of American English, was in 1846. Partridge, in his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, suggests that shyster is a variant of shicer, “a person or thing of no account, worthless,” although the latter … Read more

“She maketh earnest matter of euery flymflam,” was listed as one of the Prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, compiled by John Heywood in 1546. So the word “Flimflam” must be considerably older than that date, the earliest in recorded print. It had no known source, except that it seems to have been a reduplication, for … Read more

Our English name “horse chestnut” is nothing more than a translation of the sixteenth-century Latin botanical name, Castanea equina. The name, according to a late-sixteenth-century writer, was “for that the people of the East countries do with the fruit thereof cure their horses of the cough.” It is much more probable, however, that horse merely … Read more

Many teens drive convertibles. But some prefer roadsters. Not too long ago, the automobile body style of equivalent popularity to these was the runabout, but in his father’s youth, the runabout was a light, horse-drawn vehicle. All of these are, or were, handy means of transportation for the driver with, perhaps, one or two passengers. … Read more

Properly, “Dog Latin” is just very bad Latin, a mongrel Latin, whence the name, composed of a mixture of Latin and English. But in our own childhood, what we called dog Latin was a gibberish of decapitated English words, the initial letters transposed to the rear, plus “ay”; as, “Ohnny-jay ust-may o-gay ome-hay.” In other … Read more

First rendered by Captain John Smith as tomahack, the word “Tomahawk” first came into English through him from the Recape Indian dialect of Virginia, whose word for this all-purpose ax was tiimeihak, a shortened form of tamahakan, “cutting tool,” related to tiimiiham, “he cuts.” Closely similar words are found in a number of other Indian … Read more

We’re all familiar with Shakespeare’s “When the Hurley-burley’s done, When the Battaile’s lost, and wonne.” But the earlier form was hurling and burling, or, as written in 1530, hurlynge and burlynge. Hurling had long then meant “strife” or “commotion”; hurling-time referred specifically to the Wat Tyler rebellion in the reign of Richard II. But, despite … Read more

If the eighteenth-century inventor of the term “gazebo” had known, he might have had many a chuckle over the labors he invoked upon later scholars. From what source did he obtain it? Some think it from some unknown Oriental source, but the general consensus now is that he just made it up. As he wanted … Read more

Barrel house is a form of music, crude jazz, or a type of blues performed originally in low-class night clubs. The name itself came from any rough or low booze joint in which drinks were drawn from the barrels in which the liquor was delivered or where such barrels were prominently displayed. It is at … Read more

A “Black Maria” is a police van for the conveyance of prisoners. Tradition says that the original, in Boston, Massachusetts, in the early 1800’s, was named after an African American, Maria Lee, but known as “Black Maria,” who ran a lodging house for sailors, but who co-operated with the police in the arrest of any … Read more

Will Shakespeare probably played blindman’s buff when he was boy. At least he could have; the children of his day did play it, and were, perhaps, no more gentle in the sport than are some of today. One youngster would consent to be blindfolded and attempt, then, to grab one of the other players, each … Read more

Although the word “Flophouse” is labeled slang in some dictionaries, this early-twentieth-century substitute is certainly convenient and expressive. It will undoubtedly gain prestige and, as long as need exists, remain in our language. We in America are barely acquainted with the Englishman’s equivalent, doss house, and don’t particularly like it; it sounds Chinese, though actually … Read more

It is very unlikely that advertising copywriters, who must spend many sleepless nights trying to devise catchy phrases to describe their wares, realize that the resulting slogans are direct descendants of ancient Gaelic battle cries. But the original was just that, for the origin of slogan is sluagh-ghairm, literally, “the cry of the host,” from … Read more

The modern auburn-haired beauty has tresses of golden or reddish brown, but that was far from the color the Normans had in mind when, after the Conquest of 1066, they invaded England. They used it to describe the prevailing hue of the Saxon hair, flaxen or yellowish white, that which we now ascribe to a … Read more

The plaything known as a “Cockhorse” first attained notice early in the sixteenth century, but it is not certain why it was so named. The best guess is that the make-believe horse was one upon which its young rider was “a-cock,” that is, was jauntily set upon the wooden horse or Father’s knee.

Strangely enough, the word “Flibbertigibbet” does not appear ever to have been considered as slang. As evidence thereof the first printed appearance of which we have record was in a sermon, and at that, a sermon before His Majesty the King, King Edward the Sixth in the year 1549, sermon by Bishop Hugh Latimer. The … Read more

Centuries ago, some authorities place the date definitely as the year 1126, and others merely vaguely as recent as “about 1750”, an unknown genius bored a well in the region of France now known as Artois. By accident or design he hit upon a geological formation where a tilted porous stratum lay between two tilted … Read more

A dream full of illusions such as results from the smoking of an opium pipe, which was the source of the term “Pipe Dream”. As American slang heard just about at the beginning of the present century, and apparently first appeared in print in Wallace Irwin’s Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum (1901): To just one … Read more

Yes, odd as it may appear, that portion of our homes that lies between the roof and the ceiling of the uppermost rooms which we call “the attic” is derived from Attica, the country of ancient Greece of which Athens was the chief city. The architecture of the country was outstanding, the name, thus, being … Read more

The original was a piece of ground outside Jerusalem bought by the chief priests with the thirty pieces of silver which, according to Matthew 27:7, had been given to Judas for the betrayal of Jesus and which he later returned. The field was then set aside for the burial of strangers and the poor. The … Read more

The book Sucker’s Progress (1938), by Herbert Asbury, tells the entire story in half a dozen pages or so, but in brief the original game was a simplified form of the old game of hazard. In that game, crabs was the lowest throw. When hazard moved into France its name became crabs or craps, and … Read more

Originally, the term “Stalemate” was just stale, the mate part was added, possibly originally in jest, because a stalemate, like a checkmate, serves to end the game. Unlike checkmate, and chess itself, both of which come from Arabic, stale seems to have originated in the French estaler (haler), one of the meanings of which is … Read more

Of the many different meanings for the word poke, one, an Americanism dating to about 1860, is “a lazy person, a dawdler.” The origin of this meaning is easily traced to the British use of the verb to poke, “to potter.” But there is no indication of the reason for Jane Austen’s use of the … Read more

Captain John Smith described this unattractive insect in 1624: “A certain India Bug, called by the Spaniards a Cacarootch, the which creeping into Chests they eat and defile with their ill-sented dung.” The Spanish name, however, is cucaracha, which the English, with usual disregard for foreign languages, converted to cockroach.

Though the existing amenities between nations may cause a German to name something unpleasant as franzosisch, a Frenchman to name the same thing as anglais, and an Englishman to call it German, the name of this ailment honors, rather than derogates, its specification. The disease was identified, that is, by the German physician Friedrich Hoffmann … Read more

We suppose that the very earliest notion of pin money was literal, just enough money with which a wife could buy pins. This would have been an exceedingly small sum, indicated by the expression “not worth a pin,” one of the earliest in our language. But in the early sixteenth century and onward the amount … Read more

If you will cross-check the entry cousin-german it will be seen that german means “having the same parentage; closely related.” And germane may be substituted, and frequently is. Nowadays, however, there’s a growing tendency to apply the latter term to matters that may bear close relationship, that may be relevant or pertinent, rather than to … Read more

Also spelled skiograph, sciagraph. Long, long ago, reputedly in ancient Corinth, the art of making shadow pictures was born. That is, the practice of casting a shadow of the person or object upon a wall or other surface, then filling in the shadow with pencil or charcoal. Today we know such a picture as a … Read more

It was as early as 1812 when the verb to skin, meaning “to strip a person of his money,” was first entered into an English dictionary of slang, so the meaning undoubtedly existed in speech long before that. But it was not until 1862 that the first recorded use of the compound word skin game … Read more

The word “Highfalutin” has been in the written language of America since 1839, so it was undoubtedly in wide use in much earlier common speech. But, regrettably, not until we reach a lexicographer’s idea of heaven can the source of the term or the name of its coiner be ascertained. Bartlett (Dictionary of Americanisms, 1877) … Read more

The word “Flapdoodle” is another coinage of the same nature as “flabbergast,” but of later vintage. Its anonymous creator left no blueprint, but probably drew it from the seventeenth-century slang fadoodle, which was used in like sense. The first use in print of the surviving term was apparently in Frederick Marryat’s Peter Simple, published in … Read more

The word “toilet” has had a rather curious development in the little more than four hundred years it has been in the language. Its origin was the French toilette, the diminutive of wile, “cloth.” Its first use in English was as the name for the fragment of cloth used for wrapping clothes. Then it was … Read more

Back in the days before systems of mass communication had been developed to anything like the extent they are today, it was necessary that some means be used to call the inhabitants of a community together in case of a general alarm or for the dissemination of important news. This was frequently done by means … Read more

Several suggestions have appeared as the source of the term “Ballyhoo” for the glib patter of the showman: (a) the village of Ballyhooly, Ireland; (b) a circus blend of ballet and whoop; (c) the cry of dervishes, b’allah hoo, “Through God it is,” at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Dr. Atcheson L. Hench (American … Read more

“Pot Walloper” is a term gradually falling from repute. In its original form, potwaller, in the early eighteenth century, it designated an Englishman who, by virtue of having his own pot to boil (to wall, in the speech still current then), was entitled to vote in a parliamentary election. An early alteration of potwaller was … Read more

“Aroynt thee, Witch, the rumpe-fed Ronyon cryes,” is the way Shakespeare wrote it in Macbeth (Act I, Scene iii), and here, as well as in King Lear (Act III, Scene iv), his obvious meaning was “Begone! Get out! Scram!” but the source of his term may never be known. No earlier instance of the use … Read more

By no means the invention of John Robert Gregg, nor even of his predecessor, Sir Isaac Pitman, stenography was an art known many centuries before either of these men walked the earth. As an English word, stenography has been recorded as early as 1602. It is derived from two Greek words, stenos, “narrow,” and graphein, … Read more

The definition of the word “Claptrap” which appeared in Nathan Bailey’s dictionary of 1720 tells the full story: “A Clap Trap, a name given to the rant and rhimes that dramatick poets, to please the actors, let them go off with: as much as to say, a trap to catch a clap, by way of … Read more

Though a “Cobweb” was, in fact, a web made by a cop, we don’t mean a trap set by a policeman. No, six hundred years ago an ordinary spider, though more commonly called a spider, was also known as a cop, and when that term was combined with web its pronunciation was softened to cob.

Popular notion nowadays is that the word “Doggone” is an affected or prim American version of “God damned.” The fact is, however, that British writers, long before any record of American usage is found, were using “dog on it,” as a form of mild oath, much as earlier writers had been using “a pox on … Read more

Quagmire is he who ventures into a new undertaking, seemingly sound, only to find himself inextricably entangled in a hopeless mess, has become quagmired, bogged down, on shaky ground. The last term here is a nearly literal equivalent of the first, as quag seems certainly to be a variant of quake, “to shake,” and mire … Read more

Back in the seventeenth century the children’s game Hopscotch was called scotch-hoppers, which appears to be the earliest English name, although one writer says that the game itself probably “dates back to the beginning of the Christian era.” But the “scotch” part of the name is in nowise related to the country of Scotland nor … Read more

Annie Oakley was born in Ohio in 1860; her full name, Phoebe Anne Oakley Mozee. At the age of sixteen she married Frank Butler, a vaudeville actor, and became a superb marksman; her skill, it was said, was such that by 1,000 shots with a rifle on one occasion she broke 942 glass balls tossed … Read more

Back in the fifteenth century the jester or fool attached to the retinue of prominent persons was sometimes referred to as a patch, probably because his costume was often “a thing of shreds and patches.” And whether or not this term was applied to him only when he was ill tempered is not now known, … Read more

The word “Grubstreet” refers nowadays to a literary hack who, for needed money, will turn out an article or even a speech on whatever subject he may have a call. But the designation actually alludes to a street in London formerly bearing that name, since 1830 called “Milton Street,” which from the early seventeenth century … Read more

To the Romans, an ordinary soldier was miles (pronounced meeless), from mille, which literally means “a thousand” but in the figurative sense means “a great many, a horde.” The new recruit, to distinguish him from the seasoned campaigner, was a tiro (plural, tirones). In Medieval Latin, the words were often spelled tyro, tyrones, and it … Read more

The word “Steadfast” means “Guarding the town.” Not exactly what most of us think of today in connection with steadfast, but etymologically speaking, this comes close to the original meaning. For stead, from the Anglo-Saxon stede, is closely related to the Dutch stad, “town,” and stede, “place”; and to the German Stadt, “town,” and Statt, … Read more

Nothing much can be said about this peculiarly American substitute for bamboozle, cheat, defraud, hoax, swindle. It was, apparently, a Kentucky coinage of the early nineteenth century, a period in which frontiersmen, especially, attempted to outvie one another in the creation of extravagant, highfalutin speech. Not much of it survived, so it is to the … Read more

To speak of a woman as an Amazon is to imply that she is physically well proportioned, but large, above average in height and figure. The term was first applied by the ancient Greeks to a tribe of warlike women who dwelt along the shores of the Black Sea and in the Caucasus mountains. Men … Read more

One might suppose that “Cubbyhole” had developed from the hole or den in which the young of the bear or fox may be found, but no. In rural parts of England one may still find places where cub means the shed or pen or stall for cattle, or the coop for chickens, or the hutch … Read more

The Spanish, at one time the rulers of the seas, have left their contributions to seafaring terms, and one of these is stevedore. It is derived from the Spanish noun of agency estivador, “one who stows cargo,” of which the corresponding verb form is estivar, “to stow cargo.” From the same source is the English … Read more

The country is indebted to some unknown and unheralded genius in San Francisco for the underworld character known as the Hoodlum. Time: about 1870. Attempts to trace the source of the word have persisted almost ever since, but without success. The first theory, advanced by Bartlett in 1877 on the strength of hearsay evidence, described … Read more

Over the space of many years, inventors and would-be inventors have been trying various means of making pictures more and more true to life. One avenue has been in portraying action, another has been in portraying solidity, that is, the reproduction or viewing of pictures in such a way that the pictures seem to be … Read more

As said of various other words, some of our remote ancestors must have possessed wonderful gifts of imagination. Someone, about six hundred years ago, discovered that if the end of the ordinary iron prize or prise were sharpened to a point or beak, its use as a lever would be more effective. Someone then likened … Read more

Although pronounced “oh yes,” it has no further tie with those two words. It was an Old French addition to the law courts of England after the Norman conquest. In the French of the period it was written oiez, from the verb oir, “to hear.” Used by the court crier at the opening of the … Read more

“Peter Rice eats fish and catches eels,” was the favorite acrostic carefully lettered above PREFACE in all schoolbooks in our generation. This, of course, had then to be reversed by some bright spirit and, on the lower edge, we read, “Eels catch alligators; fish eat raw potatoes.” But the term itself is merely from the … Read more

Perhaps originally, ten or fifteen years ago, the American woman who first knitted a pair of these socks for husband, son, or sweetheart did follow the traditional plaid pattern of the clan of Campbell of Argyll, light green crossed with dark green, and narrow independent cross lines of white. If so, though the name was … Read more

Either way you say it, American with w or British with y, the names “Crawfish” and “Crayfish” are derived from Old French crevice or crevisse, meaning “crab,” a term that then covered almost any of the larger crustaceans. And because of the propensity of the critter to navigate rearward, we have made a verb of … Read more

The voluminous and authoritative Oxford English Dictionary offers 104 meanings of the verb to stand, alone and in combinations. Of these, the thirteenth reads: Card-playing. To be willing, or announce one’s willingness, to play with one’s hand as dealt. Opposed to pass. The same source gives three meanings of the adverb-adjective pat. The third, in … Read more

The prefix twi- almost invariably has the meaning of two, in the sense of twice, or double, the nature of the suffix. This is certainly not the meaning here, yet it is a little difficult to trace the reason for the origin of the use of the prefix in this combination. One possibility is that … Read more

Somewhat over five hundred years ago, the royal palace at Westminster contained an apartment which, it is presumed, was decorated with gilt stars upon the ceiling. By virtue of its decoration, the room became known as the Starred or Star Chamber. It was the practice of the reigning monarchs to hold special high courts of … Read more

The word “Hogwash” is not slang, nor is it a recent coinage. Five hundred years ago it was the common term for the swill fed to swine. And, curiously enough, the earliest instance of its use traced by the Oxford English Dictionary, dated about 1440, reads “They in the kechyn, for iape, pouryd on here … Read more