partly · 108 questions (44.1% of 245)

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No definitive origin; first print is an 1853 St. Louis newspaper. 'Keep your eyes skinned' (Moby Dick) appears earlier; theories include peeling potato eyes and Robert Peel's police (1829), and 'peel' as literal stripping away of a layer.

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Hinged table sections that fold down resemble leaves (drop leaf), and expandable tables date to around the 1500s; 'table leaf' is documented from the late 1600s (Thomas Mace).

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No one knows exactly. First published in 1589; Gemini cites the nautical equator-crossing ceremony; related 'red line' comes from a 1928 oil agreement, and the Alamo sword line story is a 19th-century myth.

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An excuse to leave discreetly, often for a drink; earliest confirmed print is an 1866 play (Flying Scud, 'a man about a dog'). 'Piss like a racehorse' is much later (1982), though it may have revived the phrase.

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Literally a string of daisies with stems linked together; first known use as a noun is 1841 (Edward Bulwer-Lytton), and as a verb 1955. The meaning later extended to any interlinked sequence, including electronics and networks.

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A term for early-2010s lifestyle trends considered the opposite of trending, or trying too hard to be trendy; coined in 2013 by a high school student. Not related to 'bougie'.

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Recorded from the 1860s for a new military or police recruit, likely a shortening of 'recruit' (or from 'rook', to cheat); popularized by Kipling in 1892 and used in baseball by the early 1900s. Etymology is uncertain.

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Meaning is to flee quickly. Mid-19th-century American, popularized in the Civil War (c. 1861); earliest print is an 1860 Pennsylvania newspaper. True origin is unknown; theories include Scandinavian, Greek 'skedasis', and a dialect word for scatter.

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Earliest known use is Scottish, 1719 (William Hamilton), then Robert Burns; leading theory is 'to the nine Muses', but the origin is murky and unconfirmed.

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Loon the bird comes from a Scandinavian word and appeared in English in the 1600s; 'loon' meaning a fool is from Middle English 'loun'. 'Lunatic' is from Latin luna (moon), and 'loony' derives from lunatic, though Merriam-Webster says 'crazy as a loon' influenced it.

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From the mid-17th century, a metaphor of cooking in which ingredients are altered and improved. An example appears in a 1636 letter from the Earl of Strafford ("the proof was once clear, however they have cooked it since"), and Smollett used it in 1751.

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It appeared in the early 19th century as a derogatory term for an effeminate man ("Molly" + "coddle"). "Coddle" came first, from the 1297 sense of boiling gently, as in a recipe.

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It is an American idiom, recorded in an 1889 Florida newspaper and in a 1837 magazine, and the Oxford English Dictionary calls it an African-American colloquialism of the mid-1800s. The rugby-scrum story is dubious, and "push comes to pull" has little evidence as an actual phrase.

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"Starboard" is from Old English "steorbord" (the side on which the ship was steered, since the steering oar was on the right). "Port" was the side facing the dock, where cargo was loaded, and it replaced "larboard" because that sounded too much like starboard. The Oxford English Dictionary cites "port" from 1543, and it was formalized in the 1800s (1867).

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From 16th-century gambling: playing "above board" meant keeping your cards above the table ("board" meant table) so others could see them. The first known figurative use is 1599, and "boardroom" and "room and board" share the sense.

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The word is "deserts" (what one deserves, with one s) from Old French "deservir" (to serve well), and it is unrelated to the sweet course. It is recorded in the early 1500s (a Nicholas Udall translation of Erasmus), before "dessert" came into use.

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A craw is the crop, a bird's preliminary stomach, where grit and stones help grind food. Stones too big to pass would literally get stuck there. The earliest known citation is an 1878 book (Old Times in Tennessee).

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From the 18th-century children's story "The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes", about an orphan girl, Margery Meanwell, who owned only one shoe until a gentleman gave her a pair. "Goody" (goodwife) with "two shoes" appears even earlier (1670), and the negative sense was influenced by "goody-goody" in the 1870s.

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Derived from the early 17th-century interjection "pew" (OED: contempt, disgust), also spelled "peugh" or "pyoo". Possible roots are Latin "putrere" (to rot) or "pus", and the letters PU have been associated with stench since ancient Rome. Most languages have a similar interjection.

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It alludes to a tether, a rope tied to an animal to keep it from wandering, so at the end of its tether it has run out of options. It has been used since the late 1600s, and "at the end of one's tether" is the primarily British version.

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"Jungle" is not a scientific term: it comes from Hindi (from Sanskrit "jangala", dry or uncultivated land), recorded in English in 1776, and was a colloquial term for tropical forests with very dense tangled undergrowth. Scientists call them tropical forests or rainforests.

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It is British, with the "by half" form used by Sheridan in The School for Scandal (1780, "too moral by half"), and "too clever by half" is recorded by 1858. "By half" originally meant "half again as much".

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Spiders are associated with witches as sidekicks. The haunted house concept goes back to Pliny the Younger's account of a haunted villa, Marie Tussaud's 19th-century Chamber of Horrors, a 1915 English attraction, and Disneyland's Haunted Mansion (1969). Commercial haunted houses spread in the 1970s, and some trace them to Depression-era Halloween parties for kids.

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From the Book of Daniel (chapter 5): at King Belshazzar's feast a disembodied hand writes on the palace wall, and Daniel interprets it as a sign of the fall of Babylon (about 540 BC).

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It is American, from around 1938, and refers to a speaker reading from notes jotted on his shirt cuff instead of memorizing, with detachable paper cuffs in the 1800s. It is popularly associated with Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, where his character writes lyrics on his cuffs.

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It was popularized in the 1880s. A plausible theory is a line from an 1816 English melodrama, The Broken Sword, in which a character is corrected for repeating a tale about a cork tree ("a chestnut"), then quoted by a Boston comic actor, William Warren Jr. It originally means a stale, oft-repeated story.

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From an 1858 cricket match in which bowler H. H. Stevenson took three consecutive wickets and fans collected money and presented him with a hat. It moved to hockey by 1909 (a Toronto businessman offered a hat to anyone scoring three goals).

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The first documented use is from a 1951 newspaper, and it likely comes from 1950s fishermen buying cans of live earthworms for bait, where the bait escaping became a bigger problem. It's an Americanized version of "opening Pandora's box".

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It appeared in the western US around 1890, and no one is certain of the origin. Guesses include "homeward bound", the railroad greeting "Ho, boy", "hoe boy" (a farmhand), and "homeless boy". A hobo is a migrant worker, distinct from a tramp (avoids work) or a bum (neither travels nor works), and hobos had an ethical code and a symbol language.

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It is American and was in use before the 1850s, traced to New York City's criminal community. "Dead" means absolutely or certain, and "to rights" means in a proper manner; "bang to rights" is a British form.

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Dalmatians have a long history as carriage dogs that were good with horses. FDNY used them from the 1870s to run beside the horse-drawn engines, clear the way, and calm the horses near fires. The breed is named for Dalmatia (first written mention 1374).

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No definitive origin. The earliest known reference is an 1889 issue of The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), long before Stephen King's The Stand (1978). Candidates include duckpin bowling, tin ducks in a shooting gallery, ducklings following their mother, and the pool term "duck" for an easy shot.

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From British poet John Gay's 1732 poem "A New Song of New Similes" ("cool as a cucumber could see the rest of womankind"). The cucumber itself originates from South Asia.

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The earliest use is from the literal upper crust of bread, in John Russell's Book of Nurture (around 1460). It was also used for the earth's crust and for a person's head or hat, and it came to refer to the aristocracy in the 19th century (1823).

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It was World War I US slang for a soldier who had lost all four limbs and could not move independently, with the first print use found in 1919 (a Surgeon General denying such cases existed). After WWII it came to mean a powerless person, then a failing organization, and by the 1950s a person unable to cope emotionally.

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The first historical reference is from British historian James Howell in 1659 ("no weeping for shed milk"), and Jonathan Swift used it in 1738. It is likely European folklore, with a story that spilled milk was an extra offering for fairies.

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"Cravat" is a catch-all word for neckwear that derives from the French "Croate" (Croatian mercenaries in the Thirty Years' War) and is the forerunner of the necktie, from the 17th century. An ascot is a wider, more informal cravat named after the Royal Ascot horse races, originally silk bundled and held by a pin.

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Cyrillic is derived from the Greek alphabet. The earliest forms are from about 893, when Bulgaria's Tsar Simeon the Great commissioned a new script at the Preslav Literary School to replace the Glagolitic script of Saints Cyril and Methodius. It became the EU's third official script (after Latin and Greek) with Bulgaria's accession in 2007.

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A spirit of the hearth in folklore, once helpful but later considered mischievous after Christianity spread. Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream is called a hobgoblin, and the word can mean an imagined source of fear.

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It began in the 1940s as a name for aerial bombs capable of destroying a city block. The first known use for a film was in 1943 (Time magazine and Variety ads), and the "blockbuster era" is dated to 1975's Jaws. An alternate theory involves studio "block booking".

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From the rubber-soled shoes plain-clothes detectives wore so they could move stealthily. "Gumshoe" means detective from about 1906-08, and as a verb it means to sneak around. "Dick" (detective) comes from the Romany "dik", to see.

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No universally accepted answer. Leading ideas: thermoregulation (humans have the most sweat glands of any primate, which works better without fur when chasing prey on the savanna), parasite control, an aquatic-ape theory, sexual selection, and a "naked love" hypothesis that hairlessness increased maternal care.

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Red tape was used under Charles V of Spain in the 16th century to bind important administrative dossiers, and legal documents were tied with it in England from the 17th century. Dickens used it in David Copperfield, and the first figurative use meaning bureaucracy is 1796. The word "tape" is older than adhesive tape and meant a narrow strip of cloth.

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Possibly from horse racing: a goat was placed in a nervous racehorse's stall to calm it, and opponents would steal the goat to upset it. The first print appearances are early 1900s (one in 1904), and there's no concrete evidence; otherwise the origin is unknown.

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Greek mythology; the origin of "kentauros" is obscure, with one theory that it meant "bull killer", from Thessalian horsemen who hunted bulls on horseback. A common theory is that cultures without horses saw mounted nomads as one creature. The Minotaur means "bull of Minos".

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The ultimate origin is unclear. It was innocuous until the 18th century and then considered unprintable, possibly from a mistaken belief that it was blasphemous (the blood of Christ, or "by our lady"). The OED likes a theory that it arose from aristocratic rowdies called "bloods". The Bloody Mary cocktail is unrelated to the queen.

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"Haywire" refers to the soft, springy wire used to bind hay bales, which tangles easily; it was used in 1900s New England lumber camps for slapdash "haywire outfits" (first appearing about 1902). "On the fritz" is of unknown origin, first appearing before 1914 (before "Fritz" meant a German soldier), possibly from the Hans and Fritz comic strip (1897). "Jerry-rigged" comes from the nautical "jury-rig", not Germans.

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Playing cards appear in 9th-10th-century China and reached Europe by the 1370s via Italy or Spain. The four French suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades) were easier to print than earlier suits; some historians link suits to medieval classes. The deck was standardized in the 1700s, and printing made it uniform.

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Dates to 16th-century England, where spirits were taxed by a burn test (alcohol that ignited was "over proof"). In 1816 England defined 100 proof by specific gravity (about 57% ABV), and the US simplified it to exactly twice the ABV. "Proof" comes from the Latin "probare" (to test), and bread proofing shares that root.

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From the Venetian "quarantina" (40 days), used in the 14th-15th centuries when ships arriving in port during the plague had to isolate for 30-40 days. The word itself is French, but the idea of isolating the sick is far older.

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German immigrants brought the egg-laying hare "Osterhase" to Pennsylvania in the 1700s, and the custom is first mentioned in a 1682 German text. The hare was a medieval symbol of fertility, and Bede linked Easter to a Saxon goddess, Eostre, though there's no firm evidence. Decorating eggs dates to at least the 13th century, since eggs were forbidden in Lent.

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Theories include someone standing on a bucket to hang themselves, and an older meaning of "bucket" as a wooden beam in a barn roof where slaughtered animals were hung, with the animal kicking it.

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Both are in the mustard family (Brassicaceae) but are different species. Horseradish is probably native to southeastern Europe or western Asia, and the English word dates to the 1590s, with "horse" meaning strong or coarse. One theory is a mix-up with the German "meerrettich" (sea radish).

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A cobbler is a deep-dish baked fruit dessert with a thick drop-biscuit or pie-dough topping. A crumble has a streusel-like topping of flour, sugar, butter, often with oats or nuts, and a crisp is similar. Neither has a bottom crust, unlike a pie.

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The first Roman calendar had 10 months, beginning in March. King Numa added January and February, giving them 28 days, and made January 29 because even numbers were considered unlucky, leaving February short. The Julian reform in 46 BC and Gregorian reform in 1582 kept that structure.

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There is no consensus on why we yawn (theories include respiration, cooling the brain and stretching tissue). Contagious yawning affects about 60% of healthy humans and is seen in chimps, dogs and others. It is linked to empathy and does not appear in children until around age four.

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The meaning was right but the timing was early: it is an American phrase, one of several "dollars to..." forms (dollars to buttons, 1884), with an 1876 Nevada newspaper citation. Donuts trace to Dutch settlers' oil cakes.

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They are two different words. The armored glove comes from the Old French "gantelet". "Gauntlet" in "run the gauntlet" comes from the Swedish "gatlopp" ("gata" lane + "lopp" course), a military punishment where an offender ran between two rows of men with switches (recorded 1670-1680). English merged the spellings.

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A Commonwealth bank holiday on December 26. The OED's earliest uses (1830s) define it as the day postmen, errand boys and servants expected to receive a "Christmas box" (a tip), since servants had worked on Christmas. It is also St. Stephen's Day.

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Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen, plus Rudolph. They come from the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (Clement Clarke Moore), with Rudolph added later.

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The book (1865) has the rabbit hole, size changes, the Mad Hatter, croquet and the trial of the Knave of Hearts; it ends with Alice waking up. Chess, Jabberwocky, the Walrus and the Carpenter, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee are in the 1871 sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Dodgson.

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Tooth traditions go far back: the Norse paid children for their first tooth, medieval Europeans burned or buried teeth to ward off witches, and there are mouse-and-tooth legends from Russia to Mexico. The modern tooth fairy took hold in the 1900s and boomed in the 1960s; paying for every tooth is a distinctly American habit.

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No definitive origin was found. One source says it came from teens at a drugstore soda fountain (a "pop stand") in the 1950s; the popsicle itself was invented in 1924.

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From Latin "cornu" (horn) and "copia" (plenty). In Greek legend, Zeus's goat foster mother Amalthea broke off a horn, and he promised it would always bring her what she wanted. The first English dictionary entry was in 1508. How it became tied to Thanksgiving wasn't found.

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Mostly marketing. Everyone slept in twin or double beds until the 1940s, and bigger sizes (queen, king, California King) were introduced between about 1941 and 1965 in the consumer boom. The word "mattress" comes from the Arabic "matrah", and spring mattresses were patented in 1865.

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The scheme comes from railroads, which have used it since the 1830s: red for stop because it signaled danger, white for go and green for caution. After a 1914 accident when a red lens fell out and white showed, green became "go". Automatic signals followed in the late 1920s.

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The Dutch phrase "in de pekel zitten" (sitting in the pickle) meant to be drunk in the 16th century. It was first used in English by Shakespeare in The Tempest (1611), and later came to mean a difficult situation.

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It's not an F but the "long s" (ſ), a separate character without a full crossbar, used at the start or middle of words (never the end). It fell out of use around 1780, and it survives as the integral symbol in calculus.

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From a conversation attributed to St. Ambrose (about 340-397), the bishop of Milan, who told St. Augustine that in Milan he did not fast on Saturdays, but in Rome he did. Augustine recorded it, giving a date of about 387.

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A kosher dill pickle is not necessarily kosher in the dietary-law sense; the term refers to the traditional style of Jewish New York City pickle makers, using garlic and dill.

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Volcanoes are active, dormant or extinct depending on recent activity. There are volcanoes on every continent, including 91 newly discovered ones beneath Antarctic ice. About 1,900 are considered active, and Mauna Loa is the largest. The word comes from the Roman god Vulcan.

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"Soda jerk" is from the motion of pulling the fountain's draft arm (about 1915, popular in the 20s-30s). "Jerk" for a sharp twist is recorded in the 1570s, from a stroke of a whip, and the insult may come from the railroad term "jerk-water town".

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Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery describes the "Grapevine Telegraph" slaves used to share news. The New York Public Library points to the Grapevine Tavern in Greenwich Village during the Civil War, and some say telegraph wires looked like trained grapevines. Australia's "bush telegraph" followed.

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From Pliny the Elder's translation of an ancient antidote for poison, to be "taken fasting plus a grain of salt" (Pompey is said to have used it). The figurative meaning became widespread in the 17th century. The idea that Roman soldiers were paid in salt is baseless.

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It originally referred to treating a rabid dog bite by putting hair from the dog in the wound. The earliest known hangover reference is in ancient Ugarit (mid-to-late second millennium BC), and the first English drinking reference is in John Heywood's 1546 text. Many cultures have a version.

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Unsettled. A newer UCLA study suggests the black stripes help zebras stay cool in the midday heat, while the long-standing consensus is camouflage or confusing predators, with little direct evidence. A group of zebras is called a zeal or a dazzle.

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It means children overhear more than adults realize. It compares the ear-like handles on a small pitcher to children's ears, and appears in John Heywood's 1546 proverb collection and later in Shakespeare's Richard III.

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Probably nautical: a seasick sailor was sent below deck, away from the weather (the "weather bow", the side bad weather blows from). The opposite is "ship-shape".

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It came out April 7, 1995. Goofy's son Max makes a promise to a girl he likes and is dragged on a cross-country trip with his embarrassing father; it's a teen romance with dad jokes. Mickey Mouse is not in it.

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The earliest record is in a 1512 German book, Thomas Murner's "Narrenbeschwörung", which includes a woodcut of a woman tossing out a bathtub with the baby in it. It was originally a German saying.

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A bandwagon was a literal wagon carrying a circus or parade band. Circus clown Dan Rice used his bandwagon to gain attention for his political campaign in 1848, and the figurative phrase is attested in a 1899 Theodore Roosevelt letter. P.T. Barnum is often cited but didn't coin it.

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The origin is unclear. Precursors include the Roman festival of Hilaria, a mention in Chaucer, and a 1508 French poem. A popular theory ties it to France's 1582 calendar change, when people slow to adopt January 1 as New Year's Day were mocked with paper fish ("poisson d'avril"). Scotland had "Hunting the Gawk" and Ireland the "send the fool further" letter.

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From the French "allez-oop", a circus acrobat's cry. It was first used in the 1950s by the San Francisco 49ers for a high arcing pass, and was popularized in basketball by NC State's David Thompson in the early 1970s, with the Tucker brothers at Oklahoma Baptist credited with using it in the mid-1960s.

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St. Patrick was a real fifth-century missionary and is the patron saint of Ireland, with a feast on March 17. He is said to have used the shamrock to explain the Trinity. The snakes legend is a myth, since there were never snakes in Ireland. Why Americans celebrate so heavily is unclear, though the Irish diaspora is the likely driver.

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There is no consensus. Theories include "fuss" (cops being fussy over trifles, recorded in 1931 slang), early officers' beards, and the sound of field radios. "Pigs" is a derogatory term dating to the 16th century, and "cop" is probably short for "copper".

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Dances with Wolves (1990), The Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven, Schindler's List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty and Gladiator (2000). The hosts missed Dances with Wolves, Silence of the Lambs and Shakespeare in Love.

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The romantic sense is first recorded in an 1884 journal and may be a variation on "mash". It was American slang around 1914 and was popularized by the Gershwins' 1920s song "I've Got a Crush on You". An older meaning of "crush" was a social gathering.

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There is no definitive answer. Popular theories are that red was the cheapest paint for poor volunteer departments, that it stood out among black vehicles, and that rival 1800s fire brigades chose it because it was an expensive, regal color. Lime green trucks are actually easier to see at night.

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A Scots poem by Robert Burns from 1788, set to a traditional tune. The title translates to "long long ago" or "old times", and the poem asks whether old acquaintances should be forgotten. It is sung to bid farewell to the old year and at funerals.

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It's American, from the 1840 presidential campaign of William Henry Harrison ("Tippecanoe and Tyler too"), when supporters rolled a giant campaign ball across the country. It replaced the earlier British phrase "keep the ball up", which suggested juggling.

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From the hopper of a grain mill, first recorded in English in 1277, and later any device that sorts grain from chaff or gold from mud.

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They are different plants. True yams (genus Dioscorea) are native to Africa, starchy, dry, white-fleshed and bark-skinned, while sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family. Most US "yams" are soft sweet potatoes; the mix-up goes back to the African word "nyami".

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Cougar, puma, mountain lion and catamount are all the same animal. "Panther" is a loose term for leopards, jaguars or any black (melanistic) big cat. The four big cats in the genus Panthera are lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars; cheetahs are a separate genus. The lynx group includes four species, including the bobcat.

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Celebrated in Canada (second Monday of October), the US, some Caribbean islands and Liberia, with similar festivals in Germany and Japan. Some historians point to a 1578 voyage from England as the first celebration in North America. Norfolk Island's version came via US whalers, and Liberia's via freed slaves.

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About 174,000 square miles (roughly two-thirds the size of Texas) with about 10 million people. It is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy with Stockholm as its capital.

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Scandinavia is commonly used for Denmark, Norway and Sweden; "Nordic" unambiguously covers those plus Finland and Iceland and their territories.

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Franklin only suggested Parisians save candles by waking earlier. George Hudson proposed modern DST in 1895; Germany and Austria-Hungary first used it nationally in 1916, with Port Arthur, Ontario trying it in 1908. The US adopted it under FDR in 1942 and standardized rules with the Uniform Time Act of 1966. A 2008 study found Indiana's adoption raised household electricity use by 1-4%.

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Spurs beat the Pistons, correct. The coach was Jeff Van Gundy and the Rockets lost the first round to Dallas in seven games, finishing 51-31. Other key players were Bob Sura, David Wesley, Juwan Howard and Jim Jackson. Several guessed names (Rafer Alston, Shane Battier, Aaron Brooks, Steve Francis) were from other seasons.

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Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Colossus of Rhodes, Lighthouse of Alexandria, Temple of Artemis, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.

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Great Wall of China, Petra, Colosseum, Chichen Itza, Machu Picchu, Taj Mahal and Christ the Redeemer, with the Great Pyramid of Giza as an honorary entry.

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Pliny the Elder (citing Cicero) described a copy of Homer's Iliad written so small it fit inside a walnut shell. Shakespeare later used it in Hamlet (c. 1602). It is a walnut.

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From "umble pie", a pie of deer innards (heart, liver, lungs, kidneys), from French "nomble". The H crept in as the phrase was reinterpreted as "humble", so the two words are etymologically unrelated.

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Born January 12, 1876 in San Francisco and died in 1916 at age 40. Novelist, journalist and social activist who wrote The Call of the Wild, White Fang and The Sea-Wolf, and was one of the first fiction writers to gain worldwide celebrity.

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No single meaning is established. The bridge dates to a Roman timber bridge in 55 AD, with medieval London Bridge begun in 1176. Theories include the Great Fire of 1666, a Viking attack, and child sacrifice (with no archaeological evidence). The 1831 bridge was replaced in 1972 and moved to Lake Havasu, Arizona.

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Mount Whitney in California at about 14.5k ft. Denali is 20,310 ft, so the gap is roughly 5,500 ft. Mount Massive is third highest outside Alaska, and Hawaii's Mauna Kea (13,803 ft) is lower.

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Sheets are the ropes that control a sail; if they are left untied the sail flaps freely in the wind, like a drunk sailor who forgot to secure it. An early example of "a sheet in the wind" dates to an 1824 novel.

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A count from a list reached about 12 active players. 44 players total were ever drafted out of high school, the last such draft was 2005.

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Mostly hydrogen and helium, probably with a solid core of heavy elements. A swirling liquid metal ocean creates the strongest magnetic field in the solar system. It has 67 moons, 53 of them named.

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