Language

The expression “to keep one’s eyes peeled” means to be very observant or extremely alert; to keep a sharp lookout. No record of this American expression has been turned up earlier than 1833, but the fact that it then appeared in a newspaper (The Political Examiner, of Shelbyville, Kentucky) is a fair indication that it … Read more

Way back in Revolutionary times, perhaps earlier, there was a woodsman maxim, “Never waste powder on a dead duck.” From that, “dead duck” became popular slang, still in use, for anything , person or article, that is no longer worth a straw, that is done up, played out. Some bright wit a hundred years ago, … Read more

The phrase “ham actor” means one who is pretty far down the scale in acting ability. Sylva Clapin, in A New Dictionary of Americanisms (1902), defines such an actor, or the variant ham: “In theatrical parlance, a tenth-rate actor or variety performer.” Why such a term was so applied was long a matter of speculation, … Read more

The saying “dead as a herring” means very, very dead. Any dead fish soon acquires an exceedingly ancient odor if left exposed for only a few hours, but the odor of a dead herring becomes twice as noticeable. That is the reason herrings are used, by dragging them over a trail, in the teaching of … Read more

In American usage, one is “caught flat-footed” when he is unprepared, asleep at the switch, inattentive, or surprised. Previously, we said that the expression probably arose from the American game of football, “for it applies most pertinently to the player who, having received the ball on a pass, is caught by an opposing player before … Read more

The expression “playing with loaded dice” means having little chance; playing a game of chance or engaging in any undertaking in which the odds are rigged against one. Obviously the expression derives from a game of dice in which the player who is discriminated against is given dice cleverly weighted which give him little or … Read more

The expression “to bite off more than one can chew” means to attempt more than one can accomplish; to try to do more than one has time for, or the ability for. A very human failing; one that is often quite praiseworthy, but also one that is often quite exasperating. The former could be said … Read more

The expression “to go to the dickens” is nothing more than a polite, or if not polite, at least euphemistic, way of saying “go to hell,” or to perdition, or to the devil, or to ruin in some uncomfortable manner. It has nothing to do with the novelist, Charles Dickens, for “dickens,” in this sense, … Read more

The collective critical comments of those opposing any measure, political or otherwise; as, “Any proposal made by Franklin Roosevelt met with a resounding anvil chorus of Republican senators.” The term has a musical background, referring originally to the cacophony of anvils or cymbals and timpani beaten rhythmically in the accompaniment of the so-called “Anvil Chorus,” … Read more

The time will come to each of us to chuck one’s weight around; to exhibit a period of ostentation, influence, or power. It may be long in the coming, but, according to the old proverb “every dog has his day”, everyone will at some time, at least once, be able to emulate the dog that, … Read more

The expression “to tilt at windmills” means to wage battle with chimeras; to take up the cudgels against an imaginary wrong or evil. The saying and its meaning take us to the redoubtable knight, Don Quixote, in the book of that name by Cervantes in 1605. The eighth chapter, Vol. I, begins: “At this point … Read more

The saying “to carry the ball” means to be responsible; to be in charge. The allusion is to the American game of football, to the player to whom, on a given play, the ball is assigned. Transference from literal to figurative usage became, at first, commercial lingo probably around 1925.

The expression “love me, love my dog” means whatever my faults, if you love me you must put up with them. Regrettably, sometimes one’s dearest friend or son or daughter construes this saying literally and thinks himself or herself quite at liberty, because of that friendship, to bring the hugest and smelliest Saint Bernard or … Read more

The expression “no ifs, ans, nor buts” means no back talk; no impudence; no argument. Our British cousins, from all that we can gather, limit this expression merely to “ifs and ans,” as in the meaningless doggerel that my brother and we used to recite, If ifs and ans Were pots and pans, There’d be … Read more

Those who use the term “double entendre” may find themselves scorned or held in ridicule by one who is really familiar with French. He will scoffingly say, “There is no such French expression. What you mean is ‘double entente.’” The latter is, in fact, present French usage, but, nevertheless, back in the seventeenth century, as … Read more

The expression “to box the compass” means to make a complete turn; also, to adopt successively all possible opinions on a question. Of course, any mariner would say that is all stuff and nonsense, and in his way of thinking he would be right. With him the phrase has just one meaning; to recite in … Read more

The phrase “let sleeping dogs lie” means to let a matter or person which at the present is at rest stay at rest, rather than to create a disturbance by bringing the matter up again or arousing the person. Chaucer wrote this in just the reverse form, “It is nought good a slepyng hound to … Read more

The expression “to have up one’s sleeve” means to have (something) in reserve in case of need; an alternative. Usually it is some bit of testimony, evidence, argument, plan, or project, or the like, that one has up his sleeve in readiness to spring or act upon if or when the original proposal turns out … Read more

Nowadays we say in the dumps, blue, low-spirited, instead of “in the doldrums”. Nobody knows what a doldrum was originally, but possibly the word itself was derived from dull, “stupid,” or from the Middle English word dold, which had the same meaning. At any rate doldrum referred originally to a dull or sluggish person, a … Read more

The phrase “a stiff upper lip” means courage, or stoicism, which one keeps or carries. The significance of the idiom is well indicated by one of its earliest appearances in print, John Neal’s down Easters (1833): “What’s the use of boohooin’? Keep a stiff upper lip; no bones broke, don’t I know?”

“0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” This passage from Matthew xxiii, 37, was the source of the expression “to take under one’s … Read more

According to Plutarch’s Life of Julius Caesar, “The die is cast!” was the remark made by Caesar when, in 49 BC., he decided to march toward Rome to protect himself against the machinations of Pornpey. His words, of course, were in Latin, “A lea est jacta!” Pompey, also a great Roman general, sharing with Caesar … Read more

The phrase “skeleton at the feast” means an element of gloom or depression; an omen of misfortune; a reminder of possible disaster in the midst of pleasure. The allusion is to a custom in ancient Egypt as related by Plutarch (c. A.D. 46 to 120) in his Moralia. He tells us that at the conclusion … Read more

Croesus succeeded his father and became king of Lydia, a country of Asia Minor, in 560 B.C. Through successive wars he greatly increased his dominions and, by such means and through trade within his own realm and with neighboring kingdoms, he became enormously wealthy. Probably his wealth was not actually as great as it was … Read more

The expression “to crack a crib” is not modern slang. In the cant of thieves, “crack” has meant “to break open” since the early eighteenth century or earlier, and “crib,” meaning “a house, shop,” was known to Charles Dickens when he wrote Oliver Twist in 1838, and was used by the underworld thirty years or … Read more

The expression “one’s cake is dough” means one’s plans have miscarried; one is disappointed. The proverb was old in the time of Shakespeare. In Taming of the Shrew, Act I, scene 1, he has Gremio saying to Hortensio, both suitors of Bianca, “Their love is not so great, Hortensio, but we may blow our nails … Read more

The sense of the phrase “to speak by the card” is nicely shown by Shakespeare’s use of it in Hamlet. There, in Act V, scene 1, he has Hamlet himself use it in his conversation with the grave digging clown who takes everything that Hamlet says in its most literal meaning. Finally Hamlet turns to … Read more

The phrase “a bone to pick” means a difficulty to be solved; a nut to be cracked; a complaint, dispute, misunderstanding or the like to be settled. The original idea was something to mull over or to occupy one as a bone occupies a dog. The Germans had the same idea but used a different … Read more

The phrase “A number one” means superior, first class, the best of its kind. An American nautical classification of British ancestry, both of which referred originally to sailing vessels. The British term, usually written “A 1,” was thus described in Lloyd’s Register: “The character A denotes new ships, or ships renewed or restored. The stores … Read more

The expression “to strike while the iron is hot” means to act at the most fitting moment; to seize the most favorable opportunity. It was, of course, the blacksmith who was originally so exhorted. If he failed to swing his hammer while the metal on the anvil was still glowing, nothing would do but to … Read more

The saying “in the dumps” means feeling blue; depressed; dejected; low in spirits. People felt this way and so expressed themselves four hundred years ago, though no one knew then (or now, for that matter) just what “dumps” meant. Sir Thomas More, in A Dialoge of Comforte against Tribulation (1534), has: “What heapes of heauynesse … Read more

Let’s quote some passages from Hoyle’s rules for the game of faro: “The cards are shuffled and placed in a dealing box, from which they can be withdrawn only one at a time. The dealer pulls out two cards, one at a time, the first card being laid aside, the one under it being placed … Read more

The expression “a hair of the dog that bit you” stems from the ancient medical maxim, Like cures like, Similia similibus curantur. Thus, even in the Iliad we find the Greek belief that a wound caused by the spear of Achilles could be healed by an ointment containing rust from that same spear. And to … Read more

An exclamation, usually indicating complaint or astonishment; as, “For crying out loud, why did you do a thing like that?” Many of the users of this expression would be shocked to learn that it is in the category known as a minced oath; that is, a substitute based on, but slightly differing from a profanity. … Read more

Of course, the old Romans had neither teacup nor tea, but they did have a saying similar to “a tempest in a teacup” usually translated in our wording: excitare fluctus in simpulo. The literal meaning is “to stir up a tempest in a small ladle”; hence, to storm about over trifles, to make much ado … Read more

There was a time when coloring matter was not used in the making of cheese. Consequently, chalk and cheese were of the same whiteness. Such, at least, was the state of affairs in the fourteenth century. Perhaps, too, an unscrupulous tradesman would now and then take advantage of an innocent young housewife and sell her … Read more

It is the poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, to whom we are indebted for the saying “a rift in the lute”, and he expressed its meaning in the lines from The Idylls of the King (Merlin and Vivien, 1870) in which it appeared: Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers: Unfaith in aught is want … Read more

On the theory that the smaller they come the cuter they are, the modern American metaphor “cute as a bug’s ear” epitomizes the acme of cuteness, for if a small ear is cute, the ear of a bug, if bugs have ears, must be the cutest thing imaginable. Sometimes the expression is paraphrased into “cute … Read more

In early usage, six hundred years ago, when anyone wanted to express close intimacy, he said (or wrote), “cheke bi cheke.” But some two centuries later someone thought it would be more picturesque to substitute the Frenchified “jowl”, variously written jowl, foul, joll, joie, geoul, chowl, for the second element, and this has been our … Read more

The expression “to make no bones about a matter” means to speak frankly; to come out flat-footed; to talk straight from the shoulder; hence, to have no scruples; to show no reluctance, also, to make no mistake (about it), to count on (it). The Paston Letters (1459) contain the line, “And fond (found) that tyme … Read more

There was actually an individual who was called admirable Crichton, though not during his brief life. His real name was James Crichton, a son of Robert Crichton, lord advocate of Scotland. He is believed to have been born in 1560, and to have died at the early age of twenty-two, but his learning and athletic … Read more

A white collar worker is anyone who performs non-manual labor; a professional person, such as lawyer, doctor, banker, clergyman, etc.; specifically, an office worker, rather than a shop worker. An anonymous newspaper columnist recently stated that the expression started “when medicine became a respected profession and doctors began to wear white collars as part of … Read more

A paragrapher in Ladies’ Home Journal (Vol. LXX, No. 12) asserted without hesitation that the term “Charley horse” for muscular stiffness came about thus: In the 1890’s, a horse (named Charley) which drew a roller in the White Sox ball park in Chicago had a peculiar limp. Hence, the fans applied the name “Charley-horse” to … Read more

Whichever the phraseology, the saying “to cash in one’s checks or chips” adds up to the one result, to die. The allusion is to the American game of poker, in which a player may at any time drop from the game and turn in (hand in, or pass in) his chips or checks to the … Read more

Back in the fourteenth century, in Wyclif’s time, they “chewed the cud”, and we still do, in imitation of the reflective appearance of cows as they lie patiently working their jaws. But to chew the fat, or rag, does not necessarily involve meditation; it usually involves nothing more than working the jaws in complaint, disputation, … Read more

“Dark and bloody ground” is a title sometimes given to the state of Kentucky, so called because of the numerous raids by Indians upon white settlers in the early days of colonization. Very little was known about the region before 1752, and the first white colony was not established until 1774, at Harrodsburg. Few Indians, … Read more

The expression “to back and fill” means to shilly-shally; to be vacillating or irresolute; to assert and deny, hem and haw; not to know if one is on one’s head or heels. Originally this was said of ships, of sailing ships especially, attempting to negotiate a narrow channel when wind and tide were adverse and … Read more

Beans, like straw, have long indicated small value. “Not to care a straw” means that the speaker has little more than the slightest concern over that of which he speaks, no more than the value of the straw trampled upon by householders of old. And the bean has long had no higher regard. (“Hill” is … Read more

The phrase “to sit like a Stoughton bottle” means to sit (or stand) dumbly apathetic, stolidly, without expression, stupidly, like a bump on a log. I know well its meaning, as my wife’s father, a New England country doctor, used it frequently during his lifetime in referring to anyone, member of his family or not, … Read more

Everyone has seen the way a cat acts with a mouse that she has caught. The poor little animal, half dead with fright or injury, waits with beating heart until the cat has apparently forgotten it or gone to sleep, and then may get halfway to its hole or other place of safety, only to … Read more

One who is a member of a Lodge of Freemasons knows so well the original meaning of this common expression that he will see little occasion for its inclusion here. But there are many who use it freely, however, who suppose it to have some connection with criminal law. Thus, in the United States, a … Read more

The expression “at the eleventh hour” means with not a moment to spare; at the latest time possible; just under the wire. This is of Biblical origin, Matthew xx, 1-16: “For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when … Read more

The phrase “to lead by the nose” means to dominate; to have control over; to have the whip hand or under one’s thumb; to hold under submission. The expression is a common one in European languages, and both Romans and Greeks of old “had a word for it.” The allusion is obvious: From the time … Read more

A huge grotesque image of the god Vishnu has been worshiped for the past eight centuries or more at Puri in Orissa, India. The local name of the god is Jagannath, a name which sounds to Occidental ears as Juggernaut. There are several curious customs connected with the worship of this god. Among them is … Read more

All the Presbyterians of Scotland bound themselves by a covenant, in 1638, to resist all attempts to alter their form of worship and to maintain the Presbyterian doctrine as the sole religion of their country. This oath was taken because Charles I, king of England, was then employing every device to bring Scotland into the … Read more

The story of how this word of Irish origin, Englished to tory from Irish toruidhe, robber, became a political term was told in 1711 by Daniel Defoe in his journal, The Review. The events he mentions occurred during his own lifetime. Titus Oates, to whom he refers, had been trained for the Protestant ministry, but … Read more

The makers of nostrums still loudly proclaim and advertise the remarkable curative powers of their remedies, sometimes claiming that they will cure anything from falling hair to ingrown toenails. The charlatans and quacks of the seventeenth century were no less modest. In fact, they went further. It was sincerely, though mistakenly, believed at that time … Read more

Originally the word tinsel was a much dressier word, the Old French estincelle , modern etincelle, and its meaning was also smarter. It denoted “brilliance; sparkle,” and the name was applied to a cloth of silk or rich wool in which strands of gold or silver were woven. Such cloth made up into robes or … Read more

In Norse mythology, as related in the Icelandic sagas, Thor was the most popular of all the gods. He was the son of Odin and Frigg (see WEDNESDAY and FRIDAY), and was represented as a man of middle age with red hair and beard, and of enormous strength. The chariot in which he rode was … Read more

In many parts of Europe it is still unusual to find a farmer who lives upon his farm. Generally he lives in a nearby village and walks each day to his fields. The custom is a survival from olden times when, for the sake of mutual protection at night, men slept within call of others. … Read more

Like comedy, the original intent of the Greeks in naming the type of play known as a tragedy cannot be determined. It is derived from the two words tragos, goat, and ode, song, ode. Thus the Greek tragodia was apparently a “goat-song.” The reason for the name has been variously conjectured. One thought is that … Read more

Most of the written literature of ancient times was on continuous sheets of parchment or papyrus. For convenience these sheets were wound into fairly tight rolls about sticks, one stick at either end of the roll. In reading, the scroll was thus unwound from one stick and, as the reading proceeded, wound upon the other. … Read more

Chief among the gods of the Scandinavian peoples was Odin. It was he, with the aid of his two brothers, who created the world out of chaos and who ruled the heaven and earth. His throne was in Valhalla. There, as the god of war, he received all those who were slain in battle, and … Read more

Chief among the Mongols ruled over by Genghis Khan were the people known as Ta-ta Mongols. Through their warlike qualities they had extended his dominions, before his death in 1227, to embrace all China, had successfully invaded northern India and Persia, and had crossed the Caucasus Mountains, penetrating as far westward as the Volga and … Read more

The original craft from which the vessel yacht derived its name was not used for pleasure. Its early Teutonic name, jaght, indicates that it was intended as a hunter; its modern German descendant, jagd, is “a hunt.” Thus, along the shores of the North Sea, the jaght of the sixteenth century was a speedy vessel … Read more

One of the great mysteries, for two hundred years, has been the source of the word Yankee. Some have thought that it came from the mispronunciation of the word “English” by the Indians of Massachusetts. Others, that its source was in the name of a Dutch captain whose name was Yanky. And still others, more … Read more

Sir Thomas More was a contemporary of Christopher Columbus and of Amerigo Vespucci and was well informed upon the discoveries of the former and the alleged discoveries of the latter. Accordingly, in a book published in 1516, he represents that the island which furnished the setting for his story was an actual western island, described … Read more

Legend has it that there were two Christians, each named Valentine, and both of whom suffered martyrdom on the same day. The day was February 14, and the martyrdom is supposed to have occurred during the reign of Claudius II, or about A.D. 270. One was a bishop, the other a priest; both were subsequently … Read more

In the fifth century A.D., a remarkable group of Teutonic tribes crossed the Rhine, descended southward through lands occupied by the Franks, fighting their way as they went, crossed the Pyrenees, lived for twenty years in Spain, and then, upon invitation from the Roman count of Africa, Boniface, crossed the Mediterranean into Africa. Eighty thousand … Read more

When the Normans invaded England they brought with them their name for the hedgehog, an animal that we do not have is America but which is related to the porcupine. The Norman name was herichon, from the popular Latin name, hericion. English attempts to master the French name produced forms variously spelled hurcheon, irchin, and … Read more

The pigment that we know as ultramarine was formerly obtained only by extracting it from the mineral lapis lazuli, or “azure stone”, from Latin lapis, stone, and Arabic lazward, azure. The pigment was known in the eleventh century A.D., at least, and may have been used at an even earlier date. It was then very … Read more

The story of the word tawdry takes us back to an Anglian princess of the seventh century. In early records her name appears as either Etheldreda or Æthelthreda, but in Norman times it was altered to Audrey. Her father, it is said, had married her to a neighboring king against her wishes, and she fled … Read more

Various military and naval expressions made their way into our language through the long contacts in past centuries of English soldiers and sailors with Hollanders, either as their foes, fighting on Dutch soil, or as their allies. One expression in particular became well known. It was that used by Dutch tavern keepers when the bugler … Read more

In the early fifteenth century there lived in Normandy a notable fellow, a fuller by trade, who achieved local fame for his satirical, but rollicking drinking songs. His name was Olivier Basselin; his home in the valley of the Vire. The songs that Basselin composed took off the follies of the day and eventually attracted … Read more

Treacle used to be called theriac or theriacle; the Romans called it theriaca, and the Greeks knew it as theriake. But the substance and its purpose were then quite different from the treacle of today. The ancients were, rightly enough, extremely fearful of the bite of wild animals. Unaware of the causes of infection, they … Read more

The nature of the instrument of torture cannot be determined. Possibly it was employed by the Roman soldiery in outposts far from Rome at some period of the Dark Ages, because its name survives in all the Romance languages. It was the torment of the “three poles,” or, in Latin, trepalium, from tres, three, and … Read more

The source of this game and of its name has long been conjectural. Until recent years the most prevalent theory was that the name tennis was derived from tenez, the imperative of the French tenir, to hold. The historical authority on various ball games, Robert W. Henderson, chief of the main reading room of the … Read more

If it were not for the Dutch, it is not likely that we would have had tea. Instead we might have had cha, which is another name for the same thing. The leaf was first brought to Europe in the sixteenth century by the Portuguese, the first to reach China by sea. They introduced it … Read more

Originally it was a contraction of envy, formed by lopping off the first syllable. But envy, in the sense in which it was thus employed, was a gambling term in the sixteenth century, meaning to invite, to challenge; the contraction, vie, was the more popular word at the gaming table. One vied or made a … Read more

When Euclid wrote his work on geometry, about 300 B.C., he used the word trapezion, “little table,” as a name for any four-sided figure except the rectangle, rhombus, and rhomboid. The name was later Latinized to trapezium. Many centuries later, in the fifth century A.D., the geometer Proclus added certain refinements to Euclid’s work which … Read more

Among the religious fanatics of India there was one highly organized band which specialized in murder, murder in a particular manner, by strangling. The band is believed to have been wiped out now, because the British hung about four hundred of them in the 1830s and transported or imprisoned for life almost a thousand others. … Read more

Numa, the second king of Rome, was traditionally believed to have decreed that every one of his subjects should mark the boundaries of his land by monuments consecrated to the god Terminus, and that fitting sacrifices should be made to the god annually. The monument was sometimes merely a post or a stone, garlanded upon … Read more

At a time when legends of the Saracens were popular subjects of poetry and drama in Europe, that is, after the Crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Mohammedan characters began to be added to some of the mystery plays. But so little did the writers of these plays know about the Mohammedan faith that … Read more

After a victorious battle it was a custom of the Greeks of early days to take from the field the arms of the enemy and hang them up on the stump of a tree in such manner as to imitate an armed man, the helmet on the top, breastplate about the stump, and shield, sword, … Read more

Some of the customs of ancient Greece and Rome were undoubtedly very much like those of today. Among them was the custom of meeting and loafing at street corners in idle conversation. In fact, there was additional justification in olden times, because there was undoubtedly at the junction of the road a statue or other … Read more

For threshing grain and cutting the straw the old-time Roman farmer used a heavy board to which, on the underside, were affixed sharp pieces of flint or iron. The driver added his weight or. loaded the board with stones, and it was then dragged over the grain by oxen. The device was called tribulum. The … Read more

Anything from Prussia or native to that region was said to be Pruce, in England of the Middle Ages. Thus there was “Pruce beer” from the “Pruce tree,” and “Pruce leather,” and the country itself was “Pruceland.” Gradually, through the fourteenth and later centuries, Pruce absorbed an initial “s” and became Spruce. This in turn … Read more

The Reverend William A. Spooner of New College, Oxford, England, who was born in 1844 and died in 1930, was one of many of us who, when speaking, accidentally transpose the initial sounds of two or more words, sometimes to one’s own great embarrassment and the hilarity of one’s audience. Such slips are usually the … Read more

When the Teutonic peoples attempted to render the Latin name for the third day of the week, dies Martis, day of Mars, into a name that would honor one of their own gods, they chose Tyr as the one who most nearly resembled the warlike Mars. At one time Tyr was probably one of the … Read more

The facts are not ascertainable. Apparently no one kept a record on how the word “spinnaker” originated. But from such evidence as there is it would appear that some yacht owner in the 1860s devised a new sail for his racing vessel. It was rigged at right angles from the vessel’s side and extended from … Read more