01. Atavistic
02. Doing a Ratner
03. Rugger bugger
04. Hooray Henry
05. Bump supper
06. Drongo
07. Peak
08. Dram
09. Whiskey Tango
10. Keystone Cops
11. Bucolic
12. Turpitude
13. Shlock
14. Whiffy

It's back after almost exactly a year! Watch out for (7) which in this entry assumes its London urban yoof meaning, while (9) is code for something ( Read more... )

1590s, originally cole florye, from Italian cavoli fiori "flowered cabbage," plural of cavolo "cabbage" + fiore "flower" (from Latin flora; see flora).

First element is from Latin caulis "cabbage" (originally "stem, stalk") which was borrowed into Germanic and is the source of cole in cole-slaw and of Scottish kale. The front end of the word was ( Read more... )

1620s, "white," from Latin candidum "white; pure; sincere, honest, upright," from candere "to shine," (see candle). In English, metaphoric extension to "frank" first recorded 1670s (compare French candide "open, frank, ingenuous, sincere"). Of photography, 1929.

SOURCE: Online Etymology Dictionary

This entry was originally posted at http:// ( Read more... )

01. Serge ( Read more... )

01. Illocutionary act ( Read more... )

01. Desmadre ( Read more... )

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has announced a package of reform proposals, including lifting some restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language and on wearing Islamic headscarves. This bit in particular caught my attention:

"Kurdish groups had also demanded that Erdogan go further on liberalizing restrictions on the use of their ( Read more... )

c.1400, "a dirty, slovenly, or untidy woman," probably cognate with dialectal German Schlutt "slovenly woman," dialectal Swedish slata "idle woman, slut," and Dutch slodder "slut," but the ultimate origin is doubtful. Chaucer uses sluttish (late 14th-century) in reference to the appearance of an untidy man. Also "a kitchen maid, a drudge" (mid-15th ( Read more... )

also pot-pourri, 1610s, "mixed meats served in a stew," from French pot pourri "stew," literally "rotten pot" (loan-translation of Spanish olla podrida), from pourri, past participle of pourrir "to rot," from Vulgar Latin *putrire, from Latin putrescere "grow rotten" (see putrescent). Notion of "medley" led to meaning "mixture of dried flowers and ( Read more... )

"the sea between southern Europe and northern Africa," c.1400, from Late Latin Mediterraneum mare "Mediterranean Sea" (7th-century), from Latin mediterraneus "midland;" the original sense being of "sea in the middle of the earth," from medius "middle" (see medial (adj.)) + terra "land, earth" (see terrain). The Old English name was Wendel-sæ, so ( Read more... )