General Origins of common sayings

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PANDEMONIUM

This comes from John Milton's poem Paradise Lost. In Hell the chief city is Pandemonium. In Greek Pandemonium means 'all the devils'.





PEEPING TOM

According to legend a man named Leofric taxed the people of Coventry heavily. His wife, lady Godiva, begged him not to. Leofric said he would end the tax if she rode through the streets of Coventry naked. So she did. Peeping Tom is a much later addition to the story. Everybody in Coventry was supposed to stay indoors with his or her shutters closed. However peeping Tom had a sneaky look at Godiva and was struck blind.





POT LUCK

In the past all kinds of food went into a big pot for cooking. If you sat down to a meal with a family you often had to take 'pot luck' and could never be quite sure what you would be served.





THE POWERS THAT BE

This comes from Romans 13:1 when Paul says 'the powers that be are ordained of God'.





PRIDE GOES BEFORE A FALL

This old saying comes from the Bible, from Proverbs 16:18 'Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall'.





PULL THE WOOL OVER MY EYES

In the 18th century it was the fashion to wear white, curly wigs. they were nicknamed wool possibly because they resembled a sheep's fleece.





PULL OUT ALL THE STOPS

This saying comes from church organs. Pulling out a stop lets air flow through a pipe and make a sound.
 
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RED HERRING

Poachers and other unsavory characters would drag a herring across the ground where they had just walked to throw dogs off their scent. (Herrings were made red by the process of curing).





RED TAPE

This phrase comes from the days when official documents were bound with red tape.






RING TRUE, RING OF TRUTH

In the past coins were actually made of gold, silver or other metals. Their value depended on the amount of gold or silver they contained. Some people would make counterfeit coins by mixing gold or silver with a cheaper metal. However, you could check if a coin was genuine by dropping it. If it was made of the proper metal it would 'ring true' or have the 'ring of truth'.





RUB SALT INTO A WOUND

This is derived from the days when salt was rubbed into wounds as an antiseptic.
 
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SALT OF THE EARTH

Is another Biblical phrase. It comes from Matthew 5:13 when Jesus told his followers 'You are the salt of the Earth'.





SCAPEGOAT

In the Old Testament (Leviticus 16: 7-10) two goats were selected. One was sacrificed. The other was spared but the High Priest laid his hands on it and confessed the sins of his people. The goat was then driven into the wilderness. He was a symbolic 'scapegoat' for the people's sins.




TO SEE A MAN ABOUT A DOG

This old saying first appeared in 1866 in a play by Dion Boucicault (1820-1890) called the Flying Scud in which a character makes the excuse that he is going 'to see a man about a dog' to get away.



SHAMBLES

Originally a shamble was a bench. Butchers used to set up benches to sell meat from. In time the street where meat was sold often became known as the Shambles. (This street name survives in many towns today). However, because butchers used to throw offal into the street shambles came to mean a mess or something very untidy or disorganized




SPINNING A YARN

Rope was made in ports everywhere. The rope makers chatted while they worked. They told each other stories while they were spinning a yarn.





SPICK AND SPAN

Today this means neat and tidy but originally the saying was spick and span new. A span was a wood shaving. If something was newly built it would have tell-tale wood chips so it was 'span new'. Spick is an old word for a nail. New spicks or nails would be shiny. However, words and phrases often change their meanings over centuries and spick and span came to mean neat and tidy.





SPINSTER

A Spinster is an unmarried woman. Originally a spinster was simply a woman who made her living by spinning wool on a spinning wheel. However, it was so common for single women to support themselves that way that by the 18th century 'spinster' was a synonym for a middle-aged unmarried woman.



START FROM SCRATCH

This phrase comes from the days when a line was scratched on the ground for a race. The racers would start from the scratch.





STRAIGHT LACED

This phrase was originally STRAIT laced. The old English word strait meant tight or narrow. In Tudor times buttons were mostly for decoration. Laces were used to hold clothes together. If a woman was STRAIT laced she was prim and proper.





THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW

This comes from Matthew 7:14. In the King James Bible published in 1611 Jesus says: 'Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth to life'. The old English word strait meant tight or narrow but when it went out of use the phrase changed to 'STRAIGHT and narrow'.




STRIKE WHILE THE IRON IS HOT

This phrase comes from the days when blacksmiths lifted iron objects from the furnace and hammered it. They could only hammer the object into shape while the iron was hot before it cooled down.





SWAN SONG

This comes from an old belief that swans, who are usually silent, burst into beautiful song when they are dying.





SWASHBUCKLER

A buckle was a kind of small shield. Swash meant the noise caused by striking. Brash men struck their swords against their bucklers as they walked around town. So they became known as swashbucklers.
 
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TAKE SOMEBODY UNDER YOUR WING

In Luke 12:34 Jesus laments that he wished to gather the people of Jerusalem as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but Jerusalem was not willing.

TAKEN ABACK

If the wind suddenly changed direction a sailing ship stopped moving forward. It was 'taken aback', which was a bit of a shock for the sailors.

TAWDRY

This is a corruption of St Audrey because cheap jewelry was sold at St Audrey's fair in Ely, Cambridgeshire.

THORN IN MY SIDE

This comes from the Bible. In 2 Corinthians 12:7, Paul states that he was given a 'thorn in my flesh' to prevent him from becoming proud. We are not told what the 'thorn' was, perhaps it was some form of illness.

THROUGH THICK AND THIN

This old saying was once 'through thicket and thin wood'. It meant making your way through a dense wood and through one where trees grew more thinly.

THROW DOWN THE GAUNTLET

In the Middle Ages a gauntlet was the glove in a suit of armor. Throwing down your gauntlet was a way of challenging somebody to a duel.

TONGUE IN CHEEK

In the 18th century sticking your tongue in your cheek was a sign of contempt. It is not clear how speaking with your tongue in your cheek took on its modern meaning.

TOUCH AND GO

This old saying probably comes from ships sailing in shallow waters where they might touch the seabed then go. If so, they were obviously in a dangerous and uncertain situation.

TOUCH WOOD

In Celtic times people believed that benevolent spirits lived in trees. When in trouble people knocked on the tree and asked the spirits for help.



TRUE BLUE

This phrase was originally true as Coventry blue as the dyers in Coventry used a blue dye that lasted and did not wash out easily. However, the phrase became shortened.



TURN THE OTHER CHEEK

Jesus told his followers not to retaliate against violence. In Luke 6:29 he told them that if somebody strikes you on one cheek turn the other cheek to him as well.



TURN OVER A NEW LEAF

This means to make a fresh start. It meant a leaf or page of a book.



TURNED THE CORNER

Ships that had sailed past the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn were said to have 'turned the corner'.
 
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WASH MY HANDS OF

The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, refused to be involved in the death of an innocent person (Jesus). So he washed his hands in front of the crowd, symbolically disassociating himself from the execution.





WEAR YOUR HEART ON YOUR SLEEVE

In the Middle Ages knights who fought at tournaments wore a token of their lady on their sleeves. Today if you make your feelings obvious to everybody you wear your heart on your sleeve.




WILLY-NILLY

This phrase is believed to be derived from the old words will-ye, nill-ye (or will-he, nill-he) meaning whether you want to or not (or whether he wants to or not).



WIN HANDS DOWN

This old saying comes from horse racing. If a jockey was a long way ahead of his competitors and sure to win the race he could relax and put his hands down at his sides



WHIPPING BOY

Prince Edward, later Edward VI, had a boy who was whipped in his place every time he was naughty



A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING

In Matthew 7:15 Jesus warned his followers of false prophets saying they were like 'wolves in sheep's clothing' outwardly disarming
 
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Shit


We have Old English to thank for one of the most commonly used swear words in the United States. Old English words such as scite (dung), scitte(diarrhea) and scitan (to defecate), all rooted in the Proto-Germanic skit-, evolved into Middle English schitte (excrement) and shiten (to defecate). It then evolved some more to the word we know and love today.

According to OED, "shit" has been used to mean an "obnoxious person" since 1508. The dictionary also has a list of common phrases involving "shit" and the approximate year they were first used. Here is some of what they found in their research:

  • 1922: "not give a shit"
  • 1937: "up shit creek"
  • 1942: "shit list"
  • 1960s: "shit-faced"
  • 1989: "same shit different day"
To trace the history of this word, you have to break it down into its component parts first. We know where "shit" comes from, so it's time to explore when "bull" first started to take on more meaning beyond the name for male cattle.

Using "bull" to mean a lie or falsehood can be traced back to the Old French word bole, which means "deception, trick, scheming, intrigue" according to the OED. Bole developed into the Middle English "bull," meaning "false talk, fraud," and was used in the 14th century.

America is credited for making "bullshit" into slang, but the word did exist before it became widely used. Most notably, it was part of the title of an unpublished T.S. Eliot poem called "The Triumph of Bullshit."
 
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Motherfucker

According to Slate, the Oxford English Dictionary cites the first known instance of "motherfucker" being used in a 1889 Texas trial where a witness stated that the defendant in the case was called "that God damned mother-f—king, bastardly son-of-a-bitch."

World War II was responsible for bringing the word into popular usage, perhaps most famously captured by Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, which features a character who basically uses it as every other word in conversation
 
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Damn

"Damn" has gone through a long line of evolutions, starting from the Latin words damnum meaning "damage, hurt, harm; loss, injury; a fine, penalty" and the verb damnare meaning "to adjudge guilty; to doom; to condemn, blame, reject" (OED).

Old French picked it up as damner, a word with a very similar meaning. It then made its way to Middle English as dampen.

In other "damn" related information, "god-damn" was used in the late 14th century, according to OED. It came from the Old French word godon, which was apparently "a term of reproach applied to the English by the French." Salty.

Additionally, the euphemism "dang" was first used around 1780. It's somehow satisfying to know that "damn" came first in our language




Fuck

The origin of "fuck" is one of the hardest to trace, as it was banned from early written work and dictionaries.

Etymologies from various sources all tend to agree that the word probably developed from various Germanic languages. The verb form of the word in German is ficken. In Dutch, fokkenmeans "to breed or beget." Norwegians have the word fukka, which means "to copulate." Swedish also has focka (to strike, to copulate) and fock(penis).

According to OED, "fuck" did not appear in any English language dictionary from 1795 to 1965. The Penguin Dictionary finally made a bold move to include it in 1966 and from there it was added into other dictionaries.

As with "shit," here are some commonly used "fuck" phrases and the approximate date when it began:

  • 1916: "fuck up"

  • 1929: "fuck off"

  • 1960: "fuck-all"
It's a myth that it stands for fornication under consent of the king
 
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Crap


Is "crap" still considered a swear word in today's day and age? We get the sense that we've been desensitized to it, that doesn't have the same bite as some of the others on this list. But no matter. Swear word or not, let's take a look at where it comes from.

"Crap" has a basis in farming terminology, of all things. It is thought to have roots in Old Dutch (krappen meaning "to cut off, pluck off") and Medieval Latin (crappa meaning "chaff"). "Chaff" is defined as "the husks of corn or other seed separated by winnowing or threshing."

Old French took the Latin word and turned it into crappe. Middle French saw it as crape, a word meaning "siftings" which does have a tangential relation to chaff in that it indicates a separation process. This made its way to Middle English as crappe, which referred to "grain that was trodden underfoot in a barn, chaff."

As a farming term, "crap" tended to point towards the stuff that was unwanted or discarded. It's no surprise that the word has continued to have that definition as time progressed. In the early 15th century, it was used to reference "weeds growing among corn." In the late 15th century, it was "residue from renderings." Using it to mean "rubbish, nonsense" was first recorded in 1898.
 
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Asshole

"Asshole" is unfortunately not creation Americans can take credit for.

The word is a derivation of "arsehole," which developed from the Middle English arce-hoole.This in turn was evolved from the Old English earsðerl, which is the Latin anus combined with pyrel ("hole"). According to OED, "asshole" came to mean "contemptible person" in the mid-1930s.

Since we're on the topic, "ass" (when it means backside, not the animal) is also a derivation of "arse," and it was first used as nautical slang in 1860
 
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Bottoms up

during the 18th and 19th centuries, English Navy recruiters tried to persuade London pub-goers to join the armed forces by getting them to accept payment in the form of a King's shilling. Dishonest recruiters would drop a shilling into the pint of a drunken man who wouldn't notice until he finished his beverage. They would then consider this proof of his agreement to join the Navy and drag him out to sea the very next day. Once drinkers and pubs figured out the scam, they introduced glasses with transparent bases "and customers would be reminded to lift the pint up and check the bottom for illicit shillings before they began drinking."
 
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Writing on the wall

The roots of this phrase, which means that something negative is inevitable, trace back to the Bible. In the Book of Daniel, God punishes King Belshazzar for boasting and foreshadows his demise by having the words for "Numbered, Numbered, Weighed, Divided" (which all refer to how he was to be taken down) literally written on the wall.
 
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Pass the buck

Don't want to take responsibility for something yourself? Just pass the buck, or hand off the duties to someone else. The phrase originated in the American Wild West during poker games, according to Jack. "The most common knife available was known as a buckhorn knife. As all cowboys and ranchers carried them around, one of them would be placed in front of whoever was due to deal the next hand, and in games where the stakes were running too high for a player, he could opt out of his turn at dealing by passing the buckhorn knife on to the next player. But even if he did choose to play, he still avoided the responsibility of setting the bets next time around by passing the buck along."
 
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Chewing the fat

Originally a sailor’s term, this phrase refers to the days before refrigeration when ships carried food that wouldn’t spoil. One of them was salted pork skin, which consisted largely of fat. Sailors would only eat it if all other food was gone… and they often complained as they did. This idle chatter became known as “chewing the fat.”



Under the weather

Originally, sailors used the phrase “under the weather bow,” referring to the side of the ship that would get the brunt of the wind during storms. To avoid getting seasick when the waves got rough, they’d bunker down in their cabins—literally under that bad weather—to let the storm pass.





Blow hot and cold

the expression comes from a story in classical mythology in which a traveler is given food and shelter by a kind woodland god. "According to the legend, the woodland god gave the traveler a room for the night and some hot soup. The man blew on his fingers to warm them and then, with the same breath, blew on the soup to cool it. Irritated at the man's apparent indecision, the woodland god packed him off outside and sent him back on his travels."
 
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Curiosity killed the cat

Everyone knows that, despite its supposed nine lives, curiosity killed the cat. Well, not quite. The 'killed the cat' proverb originated as 'care killed the cat'. By 'care' the coiner of the expression meant 'worry/sorrow' rather than our more usual contemporary 'look after/provide for' meaning.

That form of the expression is first recorded in the English playwright Ben Jonson's play Every Man in His Humour, 1598:

"Helter skelter, hang sorrow, care'll kill a Cat, up-tails all, and a Louse for the Hangman."

The play was one of the Tudor humours comedies, in which each major character is assigned a particular 'humour' or trait. The play is thought to have been performed in 1598 by The Lord Chamberlain's Men, a troupe of actors including William Shakespeare and William Kempe. Shakespeare was no slouch when it came to appropriating a memorable line and it crops up the following year in Much Ado About Nothing:

"What, courage man! what though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care."

The proverbial expression 'curiosity killed the cat', which is usually used when attempting to stop someone asking unwanted questions, is much more recent. The earlier form was still in use in 1898, when it was defined in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable:

"Care killed the Cat. It is said that a cat has nine lives, but care would wear them all out."

Curiosity hasn't received a good press over the centuries. Saint Augustine wrote in Confessions, AD 397, that, in the aeons before creating heaven and earth, God "fashioned hell for the inquisitive". John Clarke, in Paroemiologia, 1639 suggested that "He that pryeth into every cloud may be struck with a thunderbolt". In Don Juan, Lord Byron called curiosity "that low vice". That bad opinion, and the fact that cats are notoriously inquisitive, led to the source of their demise being changed from 'care' to 'curiosity'.

The earliest version that I have found of the precise current form of the proverb in print is from The Galveston Daily News, 1898:


It is said that once "curiosity killed a Thomas cat."
[Thomas cat is a jokey form of tom cat, that is, a male cat.]

The frequent rejoinder to 'curiosity killed the cat' is 'satisfaction brought it back'. I've not been able to trace the source of this odd reply. The first citation of it that I've found in print is from an Iowan college magazine The Coe College Cosmos, in February 1933.
 
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Stool Pigeon

The origin of this phrase goes back to when pigeons were considered a good food source. Hunters would take a tame pigeon and tie it to a stool in order to attract its wild brethren. Because the pigeon that was tied to the stool was used to trap others of its kind, the term "stool pigeon" became used to describe anyone used to sell out his friends





Loophole

Today, this word implies a way to get out of a contract. The origin goes all the way back to the Middle Ages and, believe it or not, a defensive architectural feature of castles. Up at the top of the fortifications, designers put in small, usually oval windows that were tapered to be wider inside and narrower from the outside (also called a "murder-hole"). This made the window difficult to hit from the outside by attacking enemies, but a good spot from which to fire arrows.This opening was called the loophole and later, the term came to represent any opening that gave an advantage to one side in an argument or contract.



Skeleton in the Closet

In the 17th century, doctors of medicine found that obtaining dead bodies for study was difficult. So difficult, in fact, that they would be lucky to get even one in their entire lifetime. Because of this, the body they obtained would be treasured and never discarded. But, obviously, society frowned on keeping corpses lying around. Doctors rectified this by keeping the skeleton in their closets. The practice was common enough that many patients just assumed that every doctor kept one hidden in there.Eventually, the phrase came to be used for any unsavory secret that was hidden away from general public knowledge.





Gibberish

The term 'gibberish' means words that can't be understood. As with so many terms we use blindly today, this one has its roots in racism. Back in Europe, any foreigner with dark hair and olive skin was assumed to be from Egypt and were called "gypts." Later the word became "gypsies." Because their accents were hard to understand, the words they spoke were termed "gibberish." This has mutated through time to also include "jibber" and "jabber."






Put Up Your Dukes!

This is a common, if now a bit old-fashioned, challenge to a fight. The origin goes back to Frederick Augustus, the 2nd son of King George III. Frederick was the Duke of York and was obsessed with fighting. Because he became synonymous with the activity, fighters nicknamed their fists "Dukes of York." The phrase was later shortened to just "Dukes."






Stigmatize

This word has come to mean a stain or a mark of shame. Its origins are from the "stigma" itself, which was a branding iron in Britain. When a criminal wasn't sentenced to death, they were branded with the stigma to mark them as criminals. For example: "A" meant adultery and "T" was for thief. Later on, when we stopped branding people, society continued using the word to label someone negatively... indicating that the person should feel shame.





Sleazy

The origin of this word comes from a linen cloth that didn't hold up well. It was originally sold in the Silesian area of Germany and purchased by London merchants for resale at a very low price. Eventually the public came to realize that the cloth was of poor quality, and it was nicknamed "Sleasie" for the area where it was manufactured. The word "sleazy" soon became synonymous with anything that was of low-quality, didn't hold up, and was grungy-looking or inferior.
 
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Frisbee

More of a product name than a phrase, this one is still pretty interesting. Mr. Frisbie was an excellent baker, establishing the Frisbie Pie Company which sold pies all across New England. Frisbie pies were especially popular among the students at Yale in the 20s, and soon, Yale dorms were full of empty Frisbie Pie tins in the same way college kids today have towers of empty pizza boxes. The Yalies soon discovered that the Frisbie tins, if flung with a spinning motion, would fly through the air to be caught and returned by a fellow time-waster. The cry of "Frisbie!" was adopted as the game's equivalent of "Fore!" in golf to notify whoever was being flung at.In 1948, a California building inspector and inventor named Fred Morrison capitalized on this game and made the first "Frisbee," adding that extra letter to avoid legal trouble with Frisbie Pie





Smart Aleck

The phrase "smart alec" arose from the exploits of Alec Hoag. A celebrated pimp, thief, and confidence man operating in New York City in the 1840s. Hoag, along with his wife Melinda and an accomplice known as "French Jack", operated a con called the "panel game," a method by which prostitutes and their pimps robbed customers. He ended up going too far, however, when he cut the police out of a deal he'd made to keep out of prison.





Wait For The Other Shoe To Drop

The common phrase "wait for the other shoe to drop" - meaning waiting for a seemingly inevitable event to occur, especially as a consequence of a previous event - actually originated in New York City during the 19th and 20th centuries. During this time, tenement buildings were designed in such a way that bedrooms were usually above and under one another. It was typical to hear your upstairs neighbor removing their shoes, causing one loud thump, followed by another. After hearing the initial startling sound, residents would end up bracing themselves as they waited for the other shoe to drop.
 
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Balls to the wall

No, it doesn't have anything to do with anyone's anatomy. The phrase originates in 20th-century military aviation. See, most planes had a ball-shaped grip atop the controls for both the throttle and the joystick. Push both all the way forward to the firewall, and the plane goes into a dive at maximum speed, preventing enemy fire from hitting the pilot. Hence, going "balls to the wall" means doing something intense with as much power as you can muster.




Winning Hands Down

When you win "hands-down," it generally means that you were way ahead of all of the competition. But in its original meaning, it doesn't just mean that you were the winner by a long shot. It means you were showboating while you did it. The first recordings of the phrase come from mid-19th-century horse races. A jockey has to keep their hands up on the reins to keep their horse moving at top speed. But if a jockey is able to win hands-down, they're so far ahead they can kick back, relax, and still come in first place
 
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Paying through the nose

The roots of this commonly used idiom come from a brutal tactic of The Dane Vikings of slitting someone’s nose from tip to eyebrow if the person refused to pay their tax, according to Grammarist





Meeting the deadline

the phrase was coined during the American Civil War and had some deadly consequences.

The deadline was apparently a line inside of the area where Federal prisoners of war were kept. If a prisoner attempted to cross the line, they would be shot, according to Bloomsbury International.
 
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Mind your beeswax, crack a smile,losing face

ladies would use a thin layer of bee's wax to smooth their complexion where they had severe acne.There were actually several phrases that came from this practice. If a lady looked too long or stared at another lady's face, they might say, "Mind your own bee's wax!" If the woman were to smile, it might crack the veneer of bee's wax on her face, thus the phrase, "crack a smile."Also, the phrase "losing face" came from when a girl would sit too close to the fire and the bee's wax would melt.
 
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Gossip

Although gossip is just one word, it is actually derived from more than one word. Before TV, phones and other media, politicians of old had to depend on feedback to find out what was important to people in their jurisdiction. They did this by sending their assistants out to the local taverns and pubs where most of the people hung out. They would sip some ale,listen to people's conversations, thus learning what was on people's minds and what their concerns were.They basically were told to "go sip some ale",thus the term "gossip" was coined






Heard it through the grapevine

This phrase has come to reference something that is heard, unofficially, or indirectly.This phrase originated at the turn of the century when the telegraph was getting off the ground. Important information was transmitted across country using the telegraph system. The system required thousands of miles of wire to be installed and this wire was held in place several feet above the ground with poles at equal intervals. People thought the wires and poles looked like the strings used to train vines so the telegraph lines became known as "the grapevine".People then started referring to hearing things "through the grapevine".





 
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