Barbarian - rough or wild person - an early Greek and Roman term for a foreigner, meaning that they 'babbled' in a strange language (by which root we also have the word 'babble' itself). 'You go girl' has been been popularised via TV by Oprah Winfrey and similar hosts/presenters, and also by US drama/comedy writers, but the roots are likely to be somewhere in the population, where it evolved as a shortening of 'you go for it' and similar variations. The mettle part coincidentally relates to the metal smelting theory, although far earlier than recent 20th century English usage, in which the word slag derives from clear German etymology via words including slagge, schlacke, schlacken, all meaning metal ore waste, (and which relate to the coal-dust waste word slack), in turn from Old High German slahan, meaning to strike and to slay, which referred to the hammering and forging when separating the waste fragments from the metal. The word 'jam' is most likely derived from the same root as 'jazz', ie., from the African word 'jasm' meaning energy (Cassell), which logically fits with the African slave origins of the music itself. What is another word for slide? | Slide Synonyms - Thesaurus. Sources tend to agree that ham was adopted as slang for an amateur telegraphist (1919 according to Chambers) and amateur radio operator (1922 Chambers), but it is not clear whether the principal root of this was from the world of boxing or the stage. To some people Aaaaargh suggests the ironic idea of throwing oneself out of a towerblock window to escape whatever has prompted the irritation. Job at a supermarket that "French Exit" actress Michelle Pfeiffer held before she became famous.
To fit, or be fitted, into a slot. Cut to the quick - offend a person sharply and deeply - 'quick' is an old word for tender flesh, either under the skin, or especially under the fingernails; Sir Thomas More's 1551 'Utopia' included the expression 'shave to the quick' describing the ruthless exploitation of tenants by landlords, and Browning used the expression when describing a fatally wounded soldier's pride as being 'touched to the quick' in his 1842 poem 'Incident at the French camp'. Door fastener rhymes with gaspar. Six of one and half a dozen of the other - equal blame or cause between two people, parties or factors - Bartlett's Quotations attributes this expression to British author Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848), from his 1836 book 'The Pirate': "It's just six of one and half a dozen of the other. Three represents the Trinity, twice three is the perfect dual, and thrice three, ie, nine, represents the 'perfect plural'.
Modern expressions connecting loon to mad or crazy behaviour most likely stem from lunatic, the loon bird, and also interestingly and old English (some suggest Scottish) word loon meaning a useless person or rogue, which actually came first, c. 1450, perhaps connected with the Dutch language (loen means stupid person), first arising in English as the word lowen before simplifying into its modern form (and earlier meaning - useless person) by the mid 15th century. At some stage between the 14th and 16th centuries the Greek word for trough 'skaphe:' was mis-translated within the expression into the Latin for spade - 'ligo' - (almost certainly because Greek for a 'digging tool' was 'skapheion' - the words 'skaphe:' and 'skapheion' have common roots, which is understandable since both are hollowed-out concave shapes). Door fastener rhymes with gasp crossword. Like words, expressions change through usage, and often as a result of this sort of misunderstanding. Increase your vocabulary and general knowledge. The use of Aaaaargh is definitely increasing in the 21st century compared to the 20th, and in different ways. In other words; a person's status or arrogance cannot actually control the opinions held about them by other people of supposedly lower standing - the version 'a cat may look at a king' is used in this sense when said by Alice, in Lewis Carroll's 1865 book 'Alice's Adventures In Wonderland'. Skin here is slang for money, representing commitment or an actual financial stake or investment, derived from skin meaning dollar (also a pound sterling), which seems to have entered US slang via Australian and early-mid 20th century cockney rhyming slang frogskin, meaning sovereign (typically pronounced sovr'in, hence the rhyme with skin) which has been slang for a pound for far longer. To understand the root, very commonly we need simply to understand how language works, and then it all makes sense.
Dipstick - idiot - from cockney rhyming slang, meaning prick. Plain sailing - easy - from 17-18th century, originally 'plane sailing', the term for a quick method of navigating short distances, when positions and distances could be plotted as if on a flat plane rather than a curved surface. You can easily improve your search by specifying the number of letters in the answer. Coach - tutor, mentor, teacher, trainer - originally university slang based on the metaphor that to get on quickly you would ride on a coach, (then a horse-drawn coach), and (Chambers suggests) would require the help of a coachman. However, while a few years, perhaps a few decades, of unrecorded use may predate any first recorded use of an expression, several hundred years' of no recorded reference at all makes it impossible to reliably validate such an origin. The expression 'doesn't know his ass (or beans, or head) from a hole in the ground/wall' is a further variation. It's not pretty but it's life, and probably has been for thousands of years. Gold does not dissolve in nitric acid, whereas less costly silver and base metals do. From the 19thC at the latest. Gall (and related terms bile and choler) naturally produced the notion of bitterness because of the acidic taste with which the substance is associated. Some have suggested - debatably - that the term is from medieval times when home-baked bread was generally burnt at the base leading to the custom of reserving the better quality upper crust for one's betters. A description of the word, as in?? But there is not a logical or clear link to the Irish. Door fastener rhymes with gap.fr. The pejorative (insulting) use of the word pansy referring to an effeminate man or a male behaving in a weak or 'girly' way is a 20th century adaptation.
Sources suggest the original mickey finn drug was probably chloral hydrate. Avatar - (modern meaning) iconic or alter-ego used instead of real identity, especially on websites - Avatar is an old Hindu concept referring to the descent or manifestation of a god or released soul to earthly existence, typically as a divine teacher. K. - Okay is one of the most commonly questioned and debated expressions origins. The expression extended to grabbing fistfuls of money sometime after 1870 (otherwise Brewer would almost certainly have referenced it), probably late 19th century. The metaphor is obviously very apt because of the sense of originating something which repeats or replicates exactly, just like coins.
Living in cloud cuckoo land - being unrealistic or in a fantasy state - from the Greek word 'nephelococcygia' meaning 'cloud' and 'cuckoo', used by Aristophanes in his play The Birds, 414 BC, in which he likened Athens to a city built in the clouds by birds. The pig animal name according to reliable sources (OED, Chambers, Cassells) has uncertain origins, either from Low german bigge, cognate with (similarly developing) pige in Danish and Swedish, or different source which appears in the 12-14th century English word picbred, meaning acorn(s), literally swine bread. Scuba - underwater diving and related breathing equipment - SCUBA is an acronym for 'self-contained underwater breathing apparatus'. These and other cognates (similar words from the same root) can be traced back to very ancient Indo-European roots, all originating from a seminal meaning of rob. Pidgin English is a very fertile and entertaining area of (and for) language study. Off your trolley/off his or her trolley - insane, mad or behaving in a mad way - the word trolley normally describes a small truck running on rails, or more typically these days a frame or table or basket on casters used for moving baggage or transporting or serving food (as in an airport 'luggage trolley' or a 'tea-trolley' or a 'supermarket trolley'). Red tape - bureaucracy, administrative obstruction, time-consuming official processes - from the middle-to-late English custom for lawyers and government officials to tie documents together with red tape. This extension to the expression was American (Worldwidewords references the dictionary of American Regional English as the source of a number of such USA regional variations); the 'off ox' and other extensions such as Adam's brother or Adam's foot, are simply designed to exaggerate the distance of the acquaintance. Henry Sacheverell dated 1710 - if you know any more about him let me know... ) but Brewer makes no mention of the term in his highly authoritative dictionary in 1870, so I'd guess the term is probably US in origin. To move stealthily or furtively. Send to Coventry/sent to Coventry/send someone to Coventry - cease communications with, ignore or ostracize someone, or to be ignored or ostracized, especially by a work or social group - this is a British expression said to date back to the mid-1600s; it also occurred as 'put someone in Coventry' during the 1800s.
Finally, and interestingly, Brewer (1870) does not list 'ham' but does list 'Hamlet' with the explanation: "A daft person (Icelandic amlod'), one who is irresolute and can do nothing fully. P. ' (for 'Old Pledge') added after their names. And if you don't satisfy them, they will 'eat you alive'... " In the same vein (thanks A Zambonini): ".. Italian it is often actually considered bad luck to wish someone good luck ('Buona Fortuna'), especially before an exam, performance or something of the kind.