word origins // Posts tagged as "word origins"
What ? Words: Run Amok
Meaning To ‘run amok’, which is sometimes spelled ‘run amuck,’ is to behave in a wild or unruly manner. Origin ‘Run amok’ is now synonymous with the term ‘go crazy,’ but originally had a specific meaning. The term originated in Southeast Asia, where ‘amok’ (variously spelled amuk, amuck, amuco) meant ‘a murderous frenzy or rage.’ ...
What ? Words: Break the Ice
To break the ice (1) to relax a tense or formal atmosphere or social situation; (2) to make a start on some endeavor. This came into general use, in sense (1), in English through Lord Byron’s “Don Juan” (1823) in the lines: And your cold people [the British] are beyond all price, When once you’ve ...
What ? Words: Cat Got Your Tongue
Theory #1 The saying comes from the Middle East, where as punishment, liars had their tongues ripped out and fed to the king’s cats. Theory #2 Fear of a whipping with a cat-o’-nine-tails, or “cat” for short, could paralyze a victim into silence. Theory #3 The expression comes from the Middle Ages when witches were ...
What ? Words: The Whole Shebang
Meaning All of it; the whole thing. Origin This is an American phrase, from the 1920s. The first question for those of us not living in the USA, and I suspect quite a few that do, is, what’s a shebang? That isn’t so easy to answer. The earliest known citation of the word uses it ...
What ? Words: Pass The Acid Test
Referring to an absolute, demanding, or ultimate challenge or measure of quality or capability – deriving from very old times, several hundreds of years ago – when nitric acid was used to determine the purity or presence of gold, especially when gold was currency before coinage. Gold does not dissolve in nitric acid, whereas less ...
What ? Words: Gung Ho
This unofficial motto of the US Marine Corps is an abbreviation for the Mandarin Gongye Hezhoushe, or industrial cooperative. The term was used in China, starting in 1938, to refer to small, industrial operations that were being established in rural China to replace the industrial centers that had been captured by the Japanese. The phrase ...
What ? Words: Read Between the Lines
To “read between the lines” is to discern a meaning which isn’t made obvious or explicit. This expression derives from a simple form of cryptography, apparently used for centuries, in which a hidden meaning was conveyed by secreting it between lines of text, often with invisible ink. This process was apparently “cracked” in the mid ...
What ? Words: Limelight
The term “limelight” today refers to any position of public attention. The word can be traced back to the 19th Century, when lighting fixtures that burned lime were used to illuminate theatrical stages. Thus, performers were literally “in the limelight” when they were on stage. Although lime is no longer used in this way, being ...
What ? Words: Boondocks
The word boondocks is a relic of American colonialism. British English imported lots of words from its far-flung colonial possessions, and this word derives from the Tagalog (ethnic Filipino) word bundok, meaning mountain. It was adopted into the language by occupying American soldiers in the Philippines as a word meaning any remote and wild place. ...
What ? Words: Think Outside the Box
The phrase think outside the box is an allusion to a well-known puzzle where one has to connect nine dots, arranged in a square grid, with four straight lines drawn continuously without pen leaving paper. The only solution to this puzzle is one where some of the lines extend beyond the border of the grid ...
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