‘anything in trousers’: meaning and origin – word histories
USA, 1858—any man—often in contexts in which a person, especially a woman, is disparagingly characterised as sexually promiscuous or indiscriminate| word histories
UK, 1874—the noun ‘long trousers’ is used in reference to the wearing of long rather than short trousers as a mark of increasing maturity| word histories
USA, 1937—a device with a revolving cage or drum, used in a game of bingo to mix up the numbered balls or slips, or for drawing numbers or prize tickets in a lottery, tombola, etc.| word histories
USA, 1815—a circular curl of hair (sometimes artificial), usually pressed flat against the temple or forehead| word histories
USA, 1858—any man—often in contexts in which a person, especially a woman, is disparagingly characterised as sexually promiscuous or indiscriminate| word histories
in the game of whist: the four of hearts, considered as an unlucky card—southeastern Scotland and northeastern England, early 19th century—origin unknown| word histories
UK, 1907: ‘to ghostwrite’ (to write a book, an article, etc., for another person, under whose name it is then published—USA, 1908: ‘ghostwriter’ (a person who ghostwrites)| word histories
‘woodpushing’: chess-playing, draughts-playing—‘woodpusher’: a chess-player, a draughts-player—refers to the wooden pieces that chess-players and draughts-players move across the board| word histories
an uncovered extra seat at the back or on the side of a two-seater motor car—USA, 1907| word histories
USA, 1874—a joke made at the expense of the joke-teller’s (real or fictitious) mother-in-law; this type of joke considered (especially depreciatively) as a genre| word histories
British, 1771—as an adjective: emaciated; weak and starving—as a noun: an emaciated or starving person| word histories
England; also: the British Parliament—UK, 1857—popularised in 1865 by the British politician John Bright| word histories
a charwoman, a cleaning lady—UK, 1940—popularised in 1942 by the charwoman’s name in the BBC radio comedy series ‘It’s That Man Again’| word histories
conventionally middle-class—UK, 1953—from ‘Mrs Dale’, the name of a conventional middle-class woman in Mrs Dale’s Diary, a BBC radio serial broadcast from 1948 to 1969| word histories
everyone is accountable for their own actions—17th century—may refer to herrings being hung when up for sale (that is to say: every piece of merchandise must sell on its own merits)| word histories
crowded or confined tightly together—Britain, 1706—in early use, this phrase often referred to the transatlantic slave trade| word histories
a container used to store for posterity a selection of objects thought to be representative of a particular moment in time—USA, 1938—coined to specifically designate the container built by the West…| word histories
UK, 1931—sports (originally golf): a style of play characterised by an emphasis on luck rather than skill—the image is of a golfer who trusts to luck when hitting the ball| word histories
USA, 1982—characteristic, reminiscent or imitative of the films or television work of the U.S. filmmaker David Lynch (1946-2025)—also ‘Lynchean’, ‘David-Lynchian’ and ‘David-Lynchean’…| word histories
three daily meals plus a bed for the night (i.e., basic food and shelter)—USA, 1929—chiefly used in relation to the military, prison, and shelters for homeless people—‘hot’ designates a hot meal…| word histories
(intransitive): to spend the summer—UK, 1797, in the following title: The Sea Side, a Poem, in a Series of familiar Epistles, from Mr. Simkin Slenderwit, summerising at Ramsgate, to his dear Mother…| word histories
very boring or unexciting—‘(as) dull as ditchwater’ (1770)—the later phrase ‘(as) dull as dishwater’ (1832) is probably due to mispronunciation of ‘ditchwater’ in the original phrase…| word histories
Yesterday, we had lots of news headlines concerning the Loch Ness monster, proving that the silly season is still a thing. (After all, it’s not as though there is actually anything important going on in the world right now.) Virtually all the headlines focused on the same catchy notion: It […] The post Of course there is no monster in Loch Ness (despite what the university’s Press Office might want you to believe) appeared first on The Science Bit.| The Science Bit
