Search Results

The origin comes in two parts. The first part is that the phrasing is inspired by the Bible, particularly Genesis 28:12 (for stairway to heaven) and Matthew 7:13 (for highway to hell). The second part …

The Routledge Dictionary of American Slang and Unconventional English (2018) traced the phrase back to 1994: the female breasts US, 1994: One phrase sums up how I feel about them: Sweater Puppies - …

The phrase arose in a transitive sense in Middle English. The Middle English Dictionary traces give up (in the entry for the verb yeven) meaning several things related to surrender: [give] up, relinq …

"I'll be dipped," or the less polite "I'll be dipped in shit," meaning "I'm surprised," is most likely from the American South. One commentator, Sadie Smith, gives her personal experience in the Paris …

The sentiment, if not the exact phrase, has occurred earlier in the 20th century. Here is Along These Streets (1942), p. 210 (Google Books), which connects the phrase to a hypothetical revolution: Th …

The earliest text I can find using the expression dates to 1758, in "Extract of a Letter from Albany, August 14, 1758" in the August 21, 1758 edition of the New-York Gazette, or the Weekly Post-Boy, a …

Using Eighteenth Century Collections Online, I found this note at the end of an anti-Catholic pamphlet titled A Protestant's Revolution (Dublin, 1734), where other pamphlets by the same publisher ("S. …

When was Cat-o-Nine-Tails first used? The earliest instance for a proximity search of cat, nine, and tails in Early English Books Online is in The English rogue described, in the life of Meriton Latro …

Using Eighteenth Century Collections Online (paywalled, so I'll use Google Books links), I was able to find a result written in the dedication of the 1782 book The Beauties of Sterne (referring to aut …

There is a gross rule that will help you understand usages like this in early English literature: If a body fluid is mentioned alongside or in place of an emotion, assume that they (a) literally …

The phrase emerges from two related meanings of "top," was a common greeting throughout the United Kingdom in the 19th century, and fell out of use only to be revived as a so-called Irish expression b …

Is there any evidence to suggest that readers understood pick in the rhyme as steal? No. The best evidence would come from direct treatments of the poem that acknowledge the alternate reading. For ins …

The term most likely emerged as a research term. Here is the citation information and abstract for a 1988 article that describes sex reassignment as "gender confirmation": Laub, D. R., et al. “Vagino …

The early usages I've been able to find date from the late sixteenth century. Here's the earliest dated usage, from the book Albions England by William Warner (1597), p. 187: Vnto the Cuckooe, ouerki …

The association between primrose and pleasure comes from its status as an early spring flower, and that flower's association with maidens and pleasure. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the …