Language

The expression “to leave no stone unturned” means: To use every expedient at one’s command. Some say that this was the reply given by the Delphic oracle when Polycrates, the Theban general, asked for aid in discovering the treasures said to have been buried by the slain leader of the defeated Persian army, Mardonius, before … Read more

We have previously expressed the opinion that the concept of a severe reprimand from an uncle of Dutch ancestry appeared to be American. Though we have nothing to offer to contradict that opinion, we have run across literary instances which indicate that the original of such an uncle was Roman. The poet Horace, that is, … Read more

A “baby kisser” is an aspirant for public office who attempts to win the favor of parents by a show of affection toward their children. Probably the Greeks and Romans had a word for this also, for the politicians of ancient days certainly practiced all the other arts known to modern office-seekers. Especially in Rome … Read more

An “eager beaver” is a person who is always “rarin’ to go,” eager to start at whatever is to be done. Undoubtedly the term developed naturally from one who “works like a beaver,” one who works rapidly and assiduously. It bears no relation to the “beaver” or full beard worn by some men. This latter … Read more

Sometimes things are thrown to the dogs or sent to the dogs, but nowadays, at least, it is usually the country or the younger generation that is going to the dogs. In any case, “to the dogs” means utter ruin, straight to hell, the demnition bow-wows. The dog, you see, was not always the house … Read more

The expression “to lock the barn door after the horse is stolen” means: To take out automobile insurance after your car has been stolen, or after you’ve had an accident; to take belated precautions, especially on one’s property. Apperson reports that the Romans had the same idea: as quoted from Plautus’s Asinaria, he gives: Ne … Read more

The phrase “not to know if one is afoot or on horseback” means: To be so completely confused, thoroughly upset, or beside oneself as to be unable to determine whether one is walking or riding; to be utterly befuddled. This degree of pixilation, or this way of expressing it, is apparently known only in America; … Read more

The expression “talking through one’s hat” means: To talk nonsense; to indulge in fanciful dreams. Just how this expression came into everyday American speech is now a mystery. From the printed evidence it’s not very old, as expressions go; probably no more than seventy years. But what event or circumstance brought it into the language? … Read more

Literally, the phrase “to back water” was said of a ship, boat, canoe, or the like, to which the paddle wheel was reversed, or the oars or paddles were moved backward. Hence, figuratively, one is said to back water when obliged to retract a statement or reverse a position or withdraw from a situation. The … Read more

The expression “fifth columnist” was wrongly attributed to the Spanish general, Emilio Mola. It should have been credited to Lieutenant General Queipo de Llano, famous as the “broadcasting general” during the Spanish Civil War. In 1936, in the early days of the war, broadcasting to the Loyalist forces in Madrid he threatened, “We have four … Read more

African dominoes and African golf are popular names for the game of craps, a gambling game played with a pair of dice. The game is especially favored among African Americans, hence, “African”; the term “dominoes” alludes to the combined number of pips on the two dice, identical with those on the face of dominoes. “Golf” … Read more

The expression “all quiet on the Potomac” means: Peaceful; undisturbed; a time of ease or quiet enjoyment: from the frequent repetition of the phrase in bulletins issued during the War between the States, 1861-1865. The original expression has been ascribed to General George B. McClellan (1826-85 ), who was in command of the Army of … Read more

The phrase “flat on one’s back” means: Helpless; without further recourse; at the end of one’s rope. Although usually employed in a figurative sense, the original meaning was literal. One who is actually flat on his back is so completely disabled through sickness or injury as to be helpless, unable to fend for himself. Figuratively, … Read more

The expression “like a bat out of hell” means: Moving or speaking, etc., with extreme speed; like greased lightning; hell-bent for election. Though this might have become a part of British aviation slang in the First World War, as Partridge says in his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1953 edition), it was certainly in … Read more

This Ivy label, in words of Leo Riordan in The Saturday Evening Post, November 7, 1953, “was an apt designation coined by a sports-writer to characterize old-line institutions.” The term “Ivy League” refers specifically to the football teams of the colleges, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania. The sportswriter to … Read more

The phrase “all wool and a yard wide” means: Of top quality, character, or the like; absolutely genuine; the real McCoy; fine in every respect; as, Knute Rockne was regarded by all who knew him as all wool and a yard wide. Fraudulence and deceit in the manufacture and sale of woolen cloth were practiced … Read more

We, in America, use the expression “to be ahead of the game” in two differing ways. Thus when we say, “Jeff is getting ahead in the store he has recently opened,” we mean that Jeff is prospering, is on the way toward a successful venture. But when we say, “Maggie Jones has thought up a … Read more

The expression “to give the air to a person” means: To tie the can to; to fire; to dismiss; to discharge from employment; literally, to put out of doors. A British counterpart of this modern American slang is “to give one the sack”. The expression also has a negative meaning in the language of love. … Read more

Back Bay is a fashionable residential district of Boston, Massachusetts. Formerly this was a basin of the Charles River, an inner harbor of Boston. From 1856 it was gradually drained and filled in and laid out in fine wide streets, including Commonwealth Avenue, one of the finest boulevards in America. Hence, used attributively, representative of … Read more

The expression “the devil to pay” means: Serious difficulty; great trouble or misfortune; perplexity; confusion; mishap. “There’ll be the devil to pay if I don’t get home in time for dinner.” There are two schools of thought about the original meaning of this. One is that it related to witchcraft, to the selling of one’s … Read more

The phrase “tooth and nail” means exactly what cute little Mary Ann means when she goes after her pestiferous older small brother who is torturing her dolly. She bites and digs in with her nails. And she and her ancestors before her, both sides of the family, have been using those natural weapons of offense … Read more

The phrase “to the bitter end” means: To the last extremity; to death or utter defeat. This expression has a double meaning, but it is hardly likely that the poetic resemblance between the two meanings is anything more than chance. That is, in the words of the famous Captain John Smith in his A Sea … Read more

In the United States the expression “absent treatment” is used with two differing meanings. Originally, and properly, it is a term in Christian Science for a treatment by a healer given at the request of and for the benefit of an absent person. But the term has also acquired a slang sense: treatment such as … Read more

Though the Romans of old said calceus urit, they meant it physically, the shoe or sandal frets or pinches. However, the figurative sense of the expression “to know where the shoe pinches”, where hardship occurs or difficulty lies or trouble may be experienced, has been in English usage for at least six centuries. Chaucer had … Read more

The term “Philadelphia lawyer” means: An astute person; sometimes one whose cleverness leads him into shady practices. According to historian John Fiske, the expression stems from the noted trial of John Peter Zenger in 1735. Zenger, a New York printer, began to publish a newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal in 1733, which became the … Read more

The phrase “a Donnybrook fair” means: Strife and contention; a melee; Bedlam broke loose; hell’s a-popping. Why? Because Donnybrook, now a part of Dublin, was a place where, every year for six centuries beginning in 1204, a riotous fair was held each August. Originally the fair lasted for two weeks, but eventually that became too … Read more

The expression “loaded for bear” means: To be fully prepared for any contingency; to be well prepared; hence, ready to fly into a rage. Originally this had a hunting significance; the bear, being the largest of dangerous American wild animals and likely to be encountered in any region of wild game, a hunter did not … Read more

Possibly the “top” in the expression “blowing one’s top” alluded originally to the top of a volcano, which would be shot into a thousand pieces with a tremendous noise during a violent explosion and scattered over the neighborhood with a devastating effect. “Blow,” at least, has been used in the sense of “to erupt; to … Read more

The expression “to get the drop on a person” means: To have a marked advantage; literally, to have a person covered with a gun before that person is able to draw his own weapon. According to Mary A. Jackson’s Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson (1895 ), this phrase originated during the War between the States. At … Read more

The term “alley cat” refers to any homeless or stray cat, especially one frequenting alleys in search of food in garbage cans, etc. By extension, a prostitute or a street-walker furtively seeking customers.

The phrase “to hold the wrong end of the stick” means: To have the wrong slant; to have another guess coming; to be misinformed, or to misinterpret a story. The stick was originally a staff, and he who had “the worse end of the staff,” as was the saying in the sixteenth century, was on … Read more

Literally, “to bleed one white” is to cause one to lose so much blood that he becomes pale, but for the past three hundred years men have been said to “bleed” when they have unwillingly or through fraud parted with an undue sum of money, as through blackmail or the like. When the victim has … Read more

Peculiarly adapted to one’s ability or talent, or particularly attractive to one: “By virtue of his knowledge of Greek and Latin, work on a dictionary was right down Phil’s alley”; “That ad for a young man to drive a car to Mexico was right up my alley.” It has been suggested, learnedly, that the expression … Read more

The expression “asleep at the switch” means: Unprepared; lacking alertness; inattentive. Undoubtedly this American expression was originally railway terminology and was almost literal in meaning. It dates from the time when railroad switches or turnouts were thrown or turned by levers operated by hand, either by switch-tenders or brakemen. In a freight yard especially, where … Read more

The term “brain trust” means: A group of experts; especially, a group organized to aid in the shaping of policies, etc.; hence, derisively, any group of advisers. The term was first coined by James M. Kieran, a reporter for The New York Times. It had been announced at Hyde Park that Franklin D. Roosevelt, the … Read more

Back in our college days a “bull session” was a gathering of young men, always men and always young, congregated informally in some dormitory room over late coffee or beer or other refreshments, with conversation ranging over any topic or topics that might be argued or discussed. The topics might be religion, giving rise to … Read more

The phrase “to eat one’s hat” means: To eat crow; to eat humble pie; to assert one’s readiness to consume such an unsavory mess if a certain event should not turn out as one predicts. The present form of the saying is first found in Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers (1837): “‘If I knew as little … Read more

The expression “as dead as the dodo” means: Utterly extinct; obsolete; completely washed up. The reference is to a peculiar flightless bird of which only two species were known, those found respectively on the islands of Mauritius and Reunion, lying east of Madagascar. The birds, as described by voyagers to the islands in the sixteenth … Read more

The phrase “to take a back seat” means: To take a seat or occupy a position among those of little importance; to practice humility or become humble; to go ‘way back and sit down. There’s little doubt that this expression was an outcome of the natural characteristics of Americans. The aggressive, those determined to be … Read more

The expression “to cut the mustard” means: To accomplish, be able to, or succeed with; to meet expectations; to play, as music, expertly. To get at the origin of this altogether American expression we have to go back to the beginning of the century when “to be the proper mustard” was a slang phrase meaning … Read more

The phrase “to bury the hatchet” means: To settle differences and take up friendly relations. Although we are accustomed to connect this expression with practices of the American Indian, we had not been able to find that there was any such ritual or saying among the tribes of North America. Accordingly we considered it a … Read more

Dean Jonathan Swift has been given credit for originating this extravagant way of indicating excessive or torrential rain, but we doubt that he did. To be sure the first literary appearance of the expression “raining cats and dogs” is in his Polite Conversation (1783), but it must not be forgotten that these so-called “dialogues” are … Read more

The great collector of Americanisms, Schele De Vere, calls “Anthony Over” an American game and defines it (1872): “A game of ball played by two parties of boys, on opposite sides of a schoolhouse, over which the ball is thrown.” He localizes it in Pennsylvania, but it was also played in southern Ohio in our … Read more

The phrase “to pay the fiddler (or piper)” means: To bear the consequences; suffer the penalties; defray the costs. The first is the American version and “to pay the piper” is the English. Fiddles furnished the music for stately English ballrooms, but flutes or pipes were the conventional music for English rustic dances, whereas the … Read more

The expression “six of one and half a dozen of the other” means: No choice; one and the same; even steven. There seems to have been no specific allusion involved in this expression, nothing beyond the fact that half a dozen is six. It first appeared in Marryat’s The Pirate and the Three Cutters (1836). … Read more

The phrase “to get one’s goat” means: To bewilder, confuse, or baffle; to irritate, annoy, or vex; to fuss one; to make one nervous; to get under one’s skin (as said of the chigger); to give one a pain in the neck. Efforts have been made to trace this American expression back to a Greek … Read more

The phrase “to row someone up Salt river” means: To defeat, overcome, vanquish an adversary; especially, politically, to defeat an opposing candidate in an election. For many years the expression was used only in the latter sense, based on an alleged incident. The story, gravely cited by the recent Dictionary of American History on the … Read more

The expression “to cry over spilt milk” means: To grieve over that which is irretrievably lost or beyond recovery; to regret that which has been said or done. Though the actual occurrence, with high milk prices, is something over which housewives probably have wept, or over a torn fig leaf, since the time of Eve, … Read more

The phrase “sailing under false colors” means: Assuming to be what one is not; being a pretender or hypocrite. This arose from the days of piracy on the high seas, when a pirate vessel, sighting a possible prey, hoisted the flag of a friendly nation to its halyards to allay suspicion while it drew within … Read more

The expression “hammer and tongs” means: With all the vigor at one’s command; forcefully; with might and main. Usually one goes after another hammer and tongs; that is, with no holds barred; with every intent to take him apart literally or figuratively. But on the domestic scene, a wife may go after the spouse, or … Read more

The expression “alpha and omega” means: The first and the last; the beginning and the end. Both the expression itself, the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet, and its definition are from the Bible, The Revelation of St. John the Divine. The phrase is repeated four times, in the eighth and eleventh … Read more

The expression “to draw the line” means: To reach one’s limit; especially, to fix a definite limit of procedure beyond which one refuses to go. Although now figurative, the line that was drawn was originally actual. It was the cut of a plowshare across the field to indicate the limit of one’s holding, back in … Read more

The Latin phrase “deus ex machina” really refers to a stage effect in Greek plays. That is to say, Greek tragic playwrights frequently introduced one or another of the gods for the purpose of explaining some situation or solving some difficulty. Representing gods, the characters who played the parts could not walk out upon the … Read more

The phrase “big butter and egg man” is a derisive term for one of the nouveau riche, for one ostentatiously displaying new wealth. The expression came into popularity about 1925, during the Coolidge regime of almost hectic national prosperity, when office workers and mill hands alike were sporting silk shirts. Everyone was playing the stock … Read more

The expression “to kill the fatted calf” means: To prepare for a season of rejoicing; to prepare a warm welcome. The allusion is to the parable of the prodigal son, Luke xv, verses 11 to 32, the younger son who took his portion of his patrimony and journeyed “into a far country, and there wasted … Read more

A “Cadmean victory” is a victory in which the victor has suffered such great loss as hardly to be distinguished from the vanquished. The term derives from the mythological founding of Thebes. Cadmus, prince of Phenicia, searching for his lost sister, was advised by an oracle to abandon the search and to follow a cow … Read more

The phrase “to take the bark off” means: To tan; give one a hiding; to lambaste, or, in simpler speech, to flog, chastise. Possibly the original idea, likening the bark of a tree to the skin of a man, was to castigate, to flog as with a cat-o’-nine-tails, or, that is, to whip so severely … Read more

One who numbers golfers or fishermen among his acquaintances should quickly recognize the nature of the expression “drawing a longbow”. Any tale which in the telling makes use of unusual distance or unusual size that cannot be subjected to verification is very likely to be stretched in the telling. Thus it was even in the … Read more

The phrase “busman’s holiday” means: Spare time spent in doing the same thing one does in one’s regular occupation. The story is that the regular driver of a London bus actually did that, spent one of his days off riding as a passenger alongside the driver who was taking his place. But if that episode … Read more

The expression “to put the bite on one” means: To mooch, cadge, shake down, or, more plainly, to beg. This American slang seems to have developed from the entirely innocent token of fondness, “to bite one’s ear.” In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio makes reply to a quip from Romeo, his dearest friend, “I will bite … Read more

Apparently this whole idea of domination by one’s mother, more rarely, wife nowadays, arose from a law going back at least three hundred years under which a man might have a tenure of property only by virtue of his wife, sometimes only through her lifetime. That tenure was known as an “apron-string hold.” The wife, … Read more

The expression “in cahoots with” means: In close cooperation with; in league with; in partnership with. It is highly probable that the American term “cahoots” came from the French cahute, a small but or cabin, or the related Dutch kajuit of the same meaning. The connecting link has not yet been found, the use, that … Read more

Delve into the intriguing origins of the phrase “to bite the thumb at,” unraveling its historical context and understanding the expressive meaning behind this unique gesture. Key Takeaways: Explore the historical roots of the phrase “to bite the thumb at” and its cultural significance. Understand the symbolic nature of this expressive gesture and its implications. … Read more

The expression “iron curtain”, in its allusion to the line across Europe beyond which are the countries under Soviet influence or control, was credited to Winston Churchill, to its use in a speech delivered by him on March 5, 1946, at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri. But the same metaphor may have been in other minds … Read more

The phrase “not to know B from a battledore means: To know not one letter from another; not to know beans; to be wholly illiterate, or extremely ignorant. This accusation of complete illiteracy dates at least to the late Middle English period, according to The Rolls Series (the chronicles and memorials of Great Britain during … Read more

The expression “poor as a church mouse” means: Mighty poor; about as deprived of the necessities of life as the “fly on the wall” of which mothers used to recite lugubriously to the children: Poor little fly on the wall, Ain’t got no shimmy-shirt, Ain’t got no pettiskirt, Ain’t got no nothing at all! Poor … Read more

A “pain in the neck” is not an actual physical pain, nor is it located so much in the neck as in the head. That is, the pain is mental, rather than physical. One who is the cause, who is the pain or gives the pain, is just persona non grata to the recipient. Others … Read more

The expression “up Salt Creek without a paddle” means: In a pretty kettle of fish; behind the 8-ball; on the spot; in a predicament. Salt Creek is not the same body of water as Salt river (q.v.), up which a political party or candidate is sometimes rowed, or at least its political allusion is different. … Read more

The phrase “try it on the dog” means: To experiment on (someone or something); to try out the effects of something upon someone. In all probability, though proof is lacking, this was a literal test originally, experimentation, probably with meat, possibly tainted, or with some other doubtful food upon the household dog to determine alimental … Read more

Colonel William D. Vandiver, representative in Congress from Missouri from 1897 to 1905, is often said to have originated the expression “I’m from Missouri; you’ve got to show me”, though he never claimed that distinction, nor does the evidence bear it out. However, he did use it in the course of a jocular informal speech … Read more

The phrase “to set one’s cap for a person” means: To strive to gain the affection of a person. Always said of a woman or maiden who, perhaps modestly or perhaps ostentatiously, puts her best foot forward in her efforts to gain the attention and win the admiration of the male she favors as a … Read more

Delve into the origins of the expression “as tight as Dick’s hatband,” unraveling the historical context and discovering the colorful meaning behind this intriguing phrase. Key Takeaways: Explore the historical roots of the expression and its unique linguistic evolution. Understand the vivid imagery conveyed by the phrase “as tight as Dick’s hatband.” Gain insights into … Read more

The expression “hell on wheels” means: Very tough, vicious, wild, or, especially of towns of the “wild and woolly West,” lawless. During the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad back in the 1860’s, as also on later western railroads, every temporary town successively at the end of the line, largely occupied by construction gangs living … Read more

Just plain exercise for the elbows, or, rather, for the arms and elbows, such as scrubbing for the females of the species or polishing the car for the males. Elbow grease is the best kind of polish, it used to be said, to get furniture smooth and lustrous. The term “elbow grease” was well known … Read more

The phrase “to tie the can to one” means: To give one the air; to fire, bounce, dismiss from employment; to expel. Although cans were in use a thousand years ago, this American slang could have had no meaning then, nor, for that matter, would we have recognized as cans the articles that then bore … Read more

Un château en Espagne has been the French expression since the fourteenth century, and as the Greeks and the Romans and the ancient Egyptians could build such marvelous yarns around the arrangement of stars in the constellations, Orion’s belt, Cassiopeia’s chair, the Great Bear (Ursa Major), and so on, and so on, it must be … Read more

The phrase “to go off the deep end” is variously interpreted. In England, where presumably it originated during or just before the First World War, it seems to have no other application than to get terrifically excited, especially without much cause. The notion, one judges, was that if one inadvertently stepped into a swimming pool … Read more

The expression “to get (or be given) the bounce” means: To be summarily ejected, as Polly Prim might say; to be ejected forcibly, as by a “bouncer,” one employed to get troublesome characters, drunks, noisy persons, or the like, out of a saloon, bar, hotel, etc.; also, to be dismissed from employment, to be expelled … Read more

The phrase “at daggers drawn” means: Ready for a fight or at the point of fighting; in a state of open hostilities. The dagger became a generally accepted part of the gentlemanly costume in the middle of the sixteenth century, and, naturally, with the means of reprisal so conveniently at hand, any insult, suggestion of … Read more

The expression “to double in brass” means: To work in two jobs in order to increase one’s income; to earn money from two sources; originally, and still, to play in the band as well as to perform. The expression is used primarily by theatrical people, especially by old-timers, when referring to an actor who, for … Read more

The phrase “to put one’s nose out of joint” means: To supplant one in the affection or esteem of another; hence, to humiliate; also, to upset one’s plans. Usually it is the arrival of a baby in the family nowadays that puts the nose of a slightly older brother or sister, hitherto greatly favored, out … Read more

The expression “to pull chestnuts from the fire” means: To be made a cat’s-paw, to be used for the advantage of another. The story dates back at least to Pope Julius II ( 1503-1513 ) who, some say, owned the monkey of the tale. As related by Drexelius (in Latin, translated for me by Miss … Read more

The expression “to save face” means: To maintain (or lose) one’s dignity, prestige, or at least a semblance of such dignity or prestige or esteem before others; to avoid humiliation or disgrace. The Chinese use only tiu lien, which means “to lose face,” though they have another expression, “for the sake of his face.” It … Read more

The phrase “tarred and feathered” means: Subjected to indignity and infamy. Not so long ago, and perhaps in some localities even yet, this was literal, a punishment or condemnation meted out upon someone adjudged to have merited such treatment. In its severest form the victim was stripped, sometimes shaved, and melted or even hot tar … Read more

The expression “hitting below the belt” means: Using unfair methods or actions. As anyone knows who has attended a prize fight or watched one on television, or who has witnessed any other pugilistic engagement, to strike one’s opponent below the line of his belt is a foul blow and, if done deliberately or repeatedly, may … Read more

The phrase “ambulance chaser” is derogatory term for a lawyer who, after an accident, immediately seeks the person injured and, for a contingent fee, offers his professional services in a suit for damages. This profession of dubious ethics, or at least the descriptive term, apparently originated in New York City in the 1890’s, during the … Read more

The expression “to get one’s Dutch up” means: To get one’s dander up; to arouse one’s temper. The reference is, of course, to the Pennsylvania Dutch, to the people of Germanic origin who, in the early seventeenth century, fled from continued religious persecutions in the Palatinate, chiefly, and brought their brands of Protestant faith into … Read more

The phrase “to be skinned out of one’s eyeteeth” means: To be right royally hornswoggled, bamboozled or flimflammed, that is, cheated or deceived, and there are twenty or more less polite ways to express the unfair methods employed in such skulduggery. Whereas the expression “to cut one’s eyeteeth” indicates that one has reached (presumably) years … Read more

We have to go back to the times of the Gold Rush of the Far West for the original specimen, and the people who used the term “a tin horn gambler” then thought they were giving a literal name to the person or persons who were thus described. In other words, the name was applied … Read more

He didn’t coin the term “codfish aristocracy”, but Wallace Irwin neatly expressed its meaning in the first stanza of “Codfish Aristocracy,” which he has given us permission to quote: Of all the fish that swim or swish In ocean’s deep autocracy, There’s none possess such haughtiness As the codfish aristocracy. In fact, the name was … Read more