‘to meet one’s Waterloo’: meaning and origin
to be utterly defeated—alludes to the defeat of Napoléon I at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815—UK, 1832, as ‘to meet with a Waterloo’—USA, 1838, as ‘to meet one’s Waterloo’
View Article‘to be economical with the actualité’: meaning and origin
UK, 1992—coined by Alan Clark during the Matrix Churchill trial—variant of ‘to be economical with the truth’, meaning: to deceive people by deliberately not telling them the whole truth about something
View Article‘to be economical with the truth’: meaning and origin
Ireland, 1832—particularly associated with Lord Robert Armstrong and the ‘Spycatcher’ trial (1986)—‘economy of truth’ was used in 1796 by Edmund Burke
View Article‘to put one’s skates on’: meanings and origin
to hurry up (1849 in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield); the image is of a skater gliding rapidly over an ice surface—also, in early use (USA, 1886): to get drunk; the rolling gait of a drunk person...
View Article‘ambulance-chaser’: meaning and origin
New York City, 1896—a lawyer who seeks accident victims as clients and encourages them to sue for damages—refers to lawyers, or their agents, following ambulances taking accident victims to hospital,...
View Article‘on one’s Jack Jones’: meaning and origin
‘on one’s own’—UK, 1926—‘Jack Jones’ is rhyming slang for ‘alone’, or for ‘own’ in ‘on one’s own’
View Article‘bring your own booze’ |‘bring your own bottle’
indicates that a place or event is one to which guests may or should bring their own alcoholic drink—UK, 1858—USA, 1910—in early U.S. use, often referred to the prohibition of alcohol
View Article‘an officer and a gentleman’: meaning and origin
a person embodying the civilised qualities supposedly characteristic of both an officer in the armed forces and a gentleman—UK, 1749, in the Articles of War
View Article‘pig in the middle’: meanings and origin
UK—a ball game for three players, in which the middle player tries to intercept the ball as it passes between the other two—hence: a person, party, etc., caught between others in a conflict, dispute, etc.
View Article‘slanguist’: meanings and origin
USA, 1871: a person who frequently uses or coins slang words and phrases—USA, 1926: a person who studies the use and historical development of slang—blend of the nouns ‘slang’ and ‘linguist’
View Article
