bloody

en-adv

bloody (comparative more bloody, superlative most bloody)

more bloody (comparative)
most bloody (superlative)
bloudy (alternative obsolete)
bl**dy (alternative)

Walk! Not bloody likely. [Sensation]. I am going in a taxi. [She goes out].

1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act III, page 153:

"Dice are no bloody good," David said.

1994, Robert Jordan, Lord of Chaos, page 109:

(informal, Australia, British, India, Ireland, Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa, mildly vulgar) Used to express anger, annoyance, or shock, or for emphasis.


bank holiday

bank holidays (plural)
Bank Holiday (alternative)
bank-holiday (alternative)

Historically, a holiday, other than a public holiday, observed by the Bank of England.

On a bank holiday weekend.

(UK, Ireland) A weekday, often a Monday, on which most businesses are closed, and granted to workers as a national holiday.

wettelijke feestdag

a weekday granted to workers as a national holiday

საბანკო არდადეგები (sabanḳo ardadegebi) (very rare, usually as translation)


holiday

From Middle English halyday, holyday, halidei, haliȝdei, from Old English hāliġdæġ (“holy day, Sabbath”), equivalent to holy + day. Compare West Frisian hjeldei (“holiday”), Danish helligdag (“holiday”), Norwegian helligdag (“holiday”), Swedish helgdag (“holiday, feast”).

inh

How much holiday are you allowed?

No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or[…]. And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get, when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 46:

Climb aboard a butterfly and take off in the breeze. Let your worries flutter by and do the things you please. In the land where dollar bills are falling off the trees. On a dreamer’s holiday.[…]Make it a long vacation. Time, there is plenty of. You need no reservation. Just bring along the one you love.

1949 August 11, “A Dreamer’s Holiday”, performed by Perry Como, The Fontaine Sisters, and The Mitchell Ayres Orchestra:

(chiefly UK, Australia) A period of one or more days taken off work for leisure and often travel; often plural.

festë

I want to take a French course this summer holiday.

(chiefly UK, Australia) A period during which pupils do not attend their school; often plural; rarely used for students at university (usually: vacation).

tətil

period during which pupils do not attend school


holiday

en-verb

holiday (third-person singular simple present holidays, present participle holidaying, simple past and past participle holidayed)

holidays (present singular third-person)
holidaying (participle present)
holidayed (participle past)
holidayed (past)

(British, intransitive) To spend a period of time in recreational travel.

matkustella

to spend a period of time in recreational travel


over

over (third-person singular simple present overs, present participle overing, simple past and past participle overed)

overs (present singular third-person)
overing (participle present)
overed (participle past)
overed (past)
o'er (alternative)

From Middle English over, from Old English ofer, from Proto-West Germanic *obar, from Proto-Germanic *uber (“over”), from Proto-Indo-European *upér, related to *upó.
Akin to Scots ower, West Frisian oer, Dutch over, Low German over, över, German ober, über, Danish over, Norwegian over, Swedish över, Icelandic yfir, Faroese yvir, Gothic 𐌿𐍆𐌰𐍂 (ufar), Latin super, Ancient Greek ὑπέρ (hupér), Albanian upri (“group of peasants”), Sanskrit उपरि (upári).
Doublet of uber, super, and hyper.

He overed the fence in good style.

(UK, transitive, dialect, obsolete) To go over, or jump over.

The cattle have been overing all day because of the flies.

(UK, intransitive, dialect, obsolete) To run about.


uni

I'm going to uni after I leave school.

Turn left when you reach the uni.

(colloquial, chiefly UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) University.


arse bandit

And all the sodomites and catamites, poncey sausage jockeys, arse bandits, turd burglars and fudge packers, fur burger-licking carpet munchers, gormless imbeciles, morons, geeks, cretins and retards […]

2011, Bruce Mason, The Telomere Conspiracy, page 96:

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, slang, derogatory) A gay man.


buggery

en-noun

buggery (countable and uncountable, plural buggeries)

Whosoever shall be convicted of the abominable crime of buggery […] shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be kept in penal servitude for life or for any term not less than ten years.

1861, United Kingdom, Offences Against the Person Act 1861:

Whosoever shall be convicted of the abominable Crime of Buggery, committed either with Mankind or with any Animal, shall be liable, at the Discretion of the Court, to be kept in Penal Servitude for Life or for any Term not less than Ten Years.

1861, Parliament of the United Kingdom, “Section 61”, in Offences against the Person Act 1861^(Offences against the Person Act 1861), page 833:

(Commonwealth, UK, Ireland) Any sexual act deemed against nature, such as homosexuality, bestiality or necrophilia.

It's gone to buggery.

(Commonwealth, UK, Ireland, slang) A broken or damaged condition.


buggery

Did he help? Did he buggery!

(Commonwealth, UK, Ireland, vulgar, colloquial) Used after an inverted subject pronoun and auxiliary verb or copula to emphatically negate the verb.


nap

nap (countable and uncountable, plural naps)

From the name of the French emperor Napoleon I of France.

4. Races run on English, Welsh or Scottish racecourses. This criterion was included so that media tipsters ^([sic]) nap selections in general could be analysed; the source of naps, The Racing Rag 'tipster table', summarises the nap selections of newspaper tipsters, who restrict their selection to horses running at racecourses in these countries.

2005, Leighton Vaughan-Williams, The Economics of Gambling, page 71:

(British) A type of bet in British horse racing, based on the experts' best tips.


serial

desctree

→ Russian: сериа́л (seriál, “TV-series”)
→ Azerbaijani: serial

/ˈsɪə.ɹɪ.əl/

Formed as series + -al, on model of Latin seriālis, from seriēs + -ālis. Cognate to Italian seriale. First use appears c. 1823. See cite below.

The practice, especially among members of shield serials, of 'whooping like cowboys and indians' and beating of truncheons on riot shields must cease as this tends to frighten and intimidate rioters.

1992, James Donald, Ali Rattansi, Race, Culture and Difference, page 66:

The serials worked in pairs, one with long shields and one with short shields.

2013, Tony Moore, Policing Notting Hill: Fifty Years of Turbulence, page 324:

(UK) A unit of police officers equipped with shields to tackle a riot.


soup

en-noun

soup (countable and uncountable, plural soups)

soups (plural)
soop (alternative obsolete)

→ Tamil: சூப் (cūp)

→ Thai: ซุป (súp)

Wikiquote
The noun is from Middle English soupe, sowpe, from Old French soupe, souppe, sope, from Late Latin suppa (“sopped bread”), from Proto-Germanic *supô (compare Middle Dutch sope (“broth”)). Doublet of sop and zuppa. See also sup and supper.
The verb is from the noun.

B. Wickham had also the disposition and general outlook on life of a ticking bomb. In her society you always had the uneasy feeling that something was likely to go off at any moment with a pop. You never knew what she was going to do next or into what murky depths of soup she would carelessly plunge you. [...] “It may be fun for her,” I said with one of my bitter laughs, “but it isn't so diverting for the unfortunate toads beneath the harrow whom she plunges so ruthlessly in the soup.”

1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter I and X:

(figuratively) Any mixture or substance suggestive of soup consistency.

(UK, informal, often with "the") An unfortunate situation; trouble, problems (a fix, a mess); chaos.


LSD

(British, Ireland, dated) Initialism of £sd (pounds, shillings, pence).


NSPCC

In primary school, a teacher had told his class that it was child abuse for parents to smack their children and had made them write down the number for the NSPCC helpline.

2019, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, “Christmas is Coming”, in Manchester Happened, Oneworld Publications (2020), page 9:

(UK) Initialism of National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.


NVQ

National Vocational Qualification
w:National Vocational Qualification

(UK, education) Initialism of National Vocational Qualification.


semibreve

From Italian semibreve, ultimately from Latin semi- (“half”) and Latin brevis (“short”).

(music, UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) A musical note four beats long in 4/4 time; a whole note (US)

โน้ตตัวกลม (not-tua-klom, literally “round body note”)


jolly

From Middle English joli, jolif (“merry, cheerful”), from Old French joli, jolif (“merry, joyful”). For the loss of final -f compare tardy, hasty, hussy, etc.
It is uncertain whether the Old French word is from Old Norse jól ("a midwinter feast, Yule", hence "fest-ive"), in which case, equivalent to yule + -ive, compare Dutch jolig (“happy, festive, frolicsome, jolly”), West Frisian joelich, joalich (“merry, jolly”), Middle High German jœlich (“hooting, jubilant”). Alternatively, the Old French adjective has been conjectured to derive from a Vulgar Latin *gaudivus (from Latin gaudeō, more at joy), in which case it would require Early Old French ⟨d⟩ /ð/ to irregularly become ⟨l⟩ in jolif rather than being dropped, which is the usual case (alternatively, /l/ may be a hiatus filler inserted into expected *joïf). A possible parallel of ⟨d⟩ to ⟨l⟩ can be seen in the French name Valois, according to one hypothesis from Latin Vadensis, though this origin is itself uncertain and disputed.

unc

uncertain

cog

(UK, dated, often humorous) A pleasure trip or excursion.


jolly

en-adv

jolly (comparative more jolly, superlative most jolly)

more jolly (comparative)
most jolly (superlative)

unc

uncertain

It’s jolly hot in here, isn’t it?

Adrian thought it worth while to try out his new slang. ‘I say, you fellows, here's a rum go. Old Biffo was jolly odd this morning. He gave me a lot of pi-jaw about slacking and then invited me to tea. No rotting! He did really.’

1991, Stephen Fry, chapter III, in The Liar, London: William Heinemann, →ISBN, page 26:


rime

en-noun

rime (countable and uncountable, plural rimes)

The noun is derived from Middle English rim, rime, rym, ryme (“hoar frost; rime”), from Old English hrīm (“frost”), from Proto-West Germanic *hrīm (“rime; hoar frost”), from Proto-Germanic *hrīmą (North Germanic), *hrīmaz, *hrīmô (“rime; hoar frost”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *krey- (“to graze, touch; to streak”).
The verb is derived from the noun. (The Old English equivalent, which did not survive into modern English, was behrīman.)
Cognates
* Middle Dutch riim, rijm, rīm (modern Dutch rijm (“hoar frost”))
* Old Danish *rim (only in rimfrost (“rime frost”); modern Danish rim (“hoar frost”))
* Old French rime, rimee (Middle French rime, rimee (“hoar frost”), Anglo-Norman rime, rimee (“hoar frost”))
* Old High German rīm (Middle High German rīm, Bavarian Reim (“dew; fog; light frost”) (dialectal))
* Old Norse hrím (Icelandic hrím, Norwegian rim (“hoar frost”))
* Old Saxon hrīm
* Old Swedish *riim, *rim (only in rimfrost (“rime frost”); modern Swedish rim)
* West Frisian rime, rym

der

When Tommy and Elspeth reached the Den the mist lay so thick that they had to feel their way though it to the Ailie, where they found Gavinia alone and scared. […] "As sure as death," she said, "there was some living thing standing there; I couldna see it for the rime, but I heard it breathing hard."

1896, J[ames] M[atthew] Barrie, “End of the Jacobite Rising”, in Sentimental Tommy: The Story of His Boyhood, London, Paris: Cassell and Company […], →OCLC, page 341:


nor

From Middle English nauther, from nother. Cognate with neither. By surface analysis, not + or.

common sense is neither common nor sensical

neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring

neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring

He's no better nor you.

'I used to think, when you first come into these parts, as you were no better nor you should be.'

1861, George Eliot, Silas Marner, London: Penguin Books, published 1967, page 131:

I wouldn’t like to live here though, not after dark. Sooner you nor me.

1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 92:


single

→ Dutch: single

→ Finnish: sinkku

→ German: Single

→ Indonesian: singel

→ Japanese: シングル (shinguru)

→ Korean: 싱글 (singgeul)

→ Polish: singiel

From Middle English single, sengle, from Old French sengle, saingle, sangle, from Latin singulus, a diminutive derived from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one”). Akin to Latin simplex (“simple”). See simple, and compare singular.

‘I want to know, Mr Stone, if, in the course of the day, you have issued any tickets to a person dressed in Arab costume?’
His reply was prompt.
‘I have — by the last train, the 7.25, — three singles.’

(UK, Scotland, dialect) A handful of gleaned grain.


wank

en-verb

wank (third-person singular simple present wanks, present participle wanking, simple past and past participle wanked)

wanks (present singular third-person)
wanking (participle present)
wanked (participle past)
wanked (past)

Origin unknown. First known use as a verb is 1905, as a noun 1948. Perhaps compare regional slang term wang, whang (“to whack or beat”). Compare Dutch wanken (“to move back and forth; move with the hands”).

cog

I was so embarrassed when my mother caught me wanking.

She wanked me in the morning.

(intransitive, slang, ambitransitive) To masturbate.


wank

en-noun

wank (countable and uncountable, plural wanks)

He’s having a wank!

(countable, slang, vulgar) An act of masturbation.

(uncountable, chiefly vulgar, fandom slang and Internet slang) Ridiculous, circular or inappropriately elaborate argument about something, especially if obnoxious, pretentious or unsubstantial.

Sometimes those involved in the wank will attempt to steer discussion by disguising themselves with a different user name and posting their own support.

2010, Karen Hellekson, “History, the Trace, and Fandom Wank”, in Heather Urbanski, editor, Writing and the Digital Generation: Essays on New Media Rhetoric, page 64:

As we've seen, the wank that broke out at the very first Supernatural fan convention (Asylum) in Coventry, UK in 2007 was partly inspired by Jensen Ackles' joke about Wincest.

2011, Katherine Larsen, Lynn Zubernis, Fandom at the Crossroads: Celebration, Shame and Fan/producer Relationships, page 156:

The general mission of Twankhard was to highlight various wanks in the fandom and cultivate anon-based discussion of them.

2013, "AngstGoddess", quoted in Anne Jamison, Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World, unknown page

(countable, uncountable, fandom slang) Drama, turmoil, or disagreement within a fannish space.


only

From Middle English oonly, only, from Old English ānlīċ, ǣnlīċ (“only; singular; solitary”), from Proto-Germanic *ainalīkaz, equivalent to one + -ly. Cognate with obsolete Dutch eenlijk, German ähnlich (“similar”), Old Norse álíkr, Swedish enlig (“unified”). Regarding the different phonological development of only and one, see the note in one.

She's only gone and run off with the milkman!

The van said ‘BURT’S BURGERS’ on one side and ‘BURT’S PEST CONTROL’ on the other. Zoe stared at the van. The creepy man was only using the same vehicle for catching rats that he did for frying burgers!

2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

(British) Used to express surprise or consternation at an action.


queue

From Middle English queue, quew, qwew, couwe, from Anglo-Norman queue, keu and Old French cöe, cue, coe (“tail”), from Vulgar Latin cōda, from Latin cauda. See also Middle French queu, cueue. Doublet of coda and cola.

I was absent-minded at the moment and was last in the queue.

1916, John Buchan, “Chapter 5”, in Greenmantle:

In a report published on October 31, Transport Focus said that a number of train companies were unable to convince it about their ability to sell a full range of tickets, handle cash payments, and avoid excessive queues at ticket machines.

2023 November 15, 'Industry Insider', “Outbreak of common sense”, in RAIL, number 996, page 68:

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, less common in North America) A line of people, vehicles or other objects, usually one to be dealt with in sequence (i.e., the one at the front end is dealt with first, the one behind is dealt with next, and so on), and which newcomers join at the opposite end (the back).


hail

en-verb

hail (third-person singular simple present hails, present participle hailing, simple past and past participle hailed)

hails (present singular third-person)
hailing (participle present)
hailed (participle past)
hailed (past)

From Middle English heil (“healthy, sound”), from Old Norse heill, from Proto-Germanic *hailaz (“whole, entire, healthy”). The verb is from Middle English heilen, itself from the adjective. Doublet of whole, hale, and heil.

өндәшеү

to call out loudly in order to gain the attention of

In Melbourne, you would usually have to hail a tram when you are travelling late at night and there are no other passengers waiting at your stop.

(transitive) To call out loudly in order to gain the attention of.

(transitive, by extension, UK, Australia) To indicate, from a designated stop or otherwise, to the driver of a public transport vehicle that one wishes to board and travel on the vehicle, usually using hand signals such as waving.


sleet

en-noun

sleet (countable and uncountable, plural sleets)

From Middle English slete, probably from Old English *slēte, *slȳte, *slīete, from Proto-West Germanic *slautijā, from Proto-Germanic *slautijǭ (“sleet”). Walter W. Skeat, the author of Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, suggests Old Norse slydda (whence Danish slud (“mixture of rain and snow”)). The word appears to be akin to Low German Sloot (“hail”), dialectal German Schloße (“large hailstone”), Old Gutnish sloyta (“slush, sleet”). Doublet of slut.

cog

(chiefly UK, Ireland, Northeastern US) Precipitation in the form of a mixture of rain and snow.


quarto

en-noun

quarto (countable and uncountable, plural quartos)

(paper) A size of paper (7.5"-10" x 10"-12.5" or 190-254 x 254-312 mm). Formed by folding and cutting one of several standard sizes of paper (15"-20" x 20"-25" or 381-508 x 508-635 mm) twice to form 4 leaves (eight sides).

(UK) Quarto writing paper (10 inches x 8 inches)


lord

Belizean Creole: laad

→ Bengali: লাট (laṭ)

→ Hindi: लाट (lāṭ)

→ Czech: lord

→ Faroese: lordur

→ Greek: λόρδος (lórdos)

Gullah: lawd

→ Hungarian: lord

→ Italian: lord

Jamaican Creole: laad

Pijin: lod

→ Portuguese: lorde

→ Russian: ло́рд (lórd)

→ Serbo-Croatian: lȍrd / ло̏рд

→ Spanish: lord

Torres Strait Creole: lod

→ Turkish: lord

→ Yiddish: לאָרד (lord)

From Middle English lord and lorde (attested from the 15th century), from earlier (14th century) lourde and other variants which dropped the intervocalic consonant of earlier lowerd, louerd, loverd, laford, and lhoaverd; from Old English hlāford < hlāfweard, a compound of hlāf (“bread”) + weard (“guardian”); see loaf and ward. The term was already being applied broadly prior to the literary development of Old English and was influenced by its common use to translate Latin dominus. Compare Scots laird (“lord”), preserving a separate vowel development (from northern/Scottish Middle English lard, laverd), the Old English compound hlāf-ǣta (“servant”, literally “bread-eater”), and modern English lady, from Old English hlǣfdīġe (“bread-kneader”). The Middle English word laford was borrowed by Icelandic, where it survives as lávarður. Doublet of hlaford and laird.

Lord, a very crooked, deformed... Person.

1699, B.E., A new dictionary of the terms ancient and modern of the canting crew

Twenty years ago you might hear a sixpence described as a ‘Lord’ meaning ‘Lord of the Manor’; that is, a tanner.

1933 November 16, Times Literary Supplement, 782/1:

Cockney rhyming slang
Cockney rhyming slang

(British, Australia, via Cockney rhyming slang, obsolete) Sixpence.


bottom

bottom (countable and uncountable, plural bottoms)

bottoms (plural)
botton (alternative dialectal)

→ Dutch: bottom

→ French: bottom

→ Portuguese: bottom

PIE word
 *bʰudʰmḗn
From Middle English botme, botom, from Old English botm, bodan (“bottom, foundation; ground, abyss”), from Proto-West Germanic *butm, from Proto-Germanic *butmaz, *budmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn (“bottom”). Cognate with Dutch bodem, German Boden, Icelandic botn, Danish bund; also Irish bonn (“sole (of foot)”), Ancient Greek πυθμήν (puthmḗn, “bottom of a cup or jar”), Sanskrit बुध्न (budhna, “bottom”), Persian بن (bon, “bottom”), Latin fundus (“bottom”) (whence fund, via French).
The sense “posterior of a person” is first attested in 1794; the verb “to reach the bottom of” is first attested in 1808. bottom dollar (“the last dollar one has”) is from 1882.

cog

lack bottom

(uncountable, British, slang) Character, reliability, staying power, dignity, integrity or sound judgment.

издръжливост

character, reliability, staying power, dignity, integrity or sound judgment


bum

en-verb

bum (third-person singular simple present bums, present participle bumming, simple past and past participle bummed)

bums (present singular third-person)
bumming (participle present)
bummed (participle past)
bummed (past)

Attested since the 1300s, as Middle English bom (found in John Trevisa's 1387 Translation of the 'Polychronicon' of Ranulph Higden, "his bom is oute"), of uncertain origin. Sometimes suggested to be a shortening of botme, botom, bottum (“bottom”), but this is contradicted by the fact that bottom is not attested in reference to the buttocks until the late 1700s. Suggested by some old and modern references to be onomatopoeic.
Compare also Old Irish, Scottish Gaelic bun (“base, bottom”).

Your bars are fake and my bars are real; / Is it true you got bummed on a field?

2016 December 3, “Soph Aspin Send”, performed by Millie B:

(UK, Ireland, transitive, colloquial) To sodomize; to engage in anal sex.


bum

(more vulgar)

Maxine tried hers. ‘Oh bum,’ she said crossly. ‘The sugar isn’t sugar. It’s salt.’

(UK, Ireland, childish, euphemistic) An expression of annoyance.


bum

→ French: bummer

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: bomma

1864, back-formation from bummer, from German Bummler (“loafer”), from bummeln (“to loaf”).

(transitive, slang, British) To wet the end of a marijuana cigarette (spliff).


get knotted

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-get knotted.wav

You want me to go to the party with you? Get knotted!

(chiefly British, imperative, slang) A mildly offensive expression of refusal.


shithouse

From shit + house. Compare Middle Low German schîthûs, German Scheißhaus, Swedish skithus, Icelandic skíthús.

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, vulgar, derogatory, slang) A coward; one who is overly fearful or timid.


shithouse

The stupefied bus driver kept ranting and raving at him. “You could have been stuffed, mate! Once the water splits it would have been the most shithouse moment in your life, and the last one! This beach is for crocs only![…]”

2005, Eckhard Otto Hardy Marthen, Otto, page 334:

The story goes that when she applied for the job, they were fearful of hiring her because she was ‘much more shithouse than them’. I cannot imagine anyone being worse than those two but she did give it a good go.

2010, Brian Cadd, From This Side of Things, page 255:

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, vulgar, slang) Of poor quality.


shithouse

shithouse (third-person singular simple present shithouses, present participle shithousing, simple past and past participle shithoused)

shithouses (present singular third-person)
shithousing (participle present)
shithoused (participle past)
shithoused (past)

2021, Harry Diamond, “Five times El Cholo’s Atleti sh*thoused their way to famous Champions League wins”, in The Football Faithful:

(UK, Ireland, sports, slang) To engage in persistent unsporting behaviour or gamesmanship; to play in a cynical, ugly manner; to cheat without being punished.


furlong

en-noun

furlong (plural furlongs or (archaic) furlong)

furlongs (plural)
furlong (archaic plural)
forlong (alternative)

PIE word
 *dlongʰos
From Middle English furlong, forlong (“unit of distance about one-eighth of a mile; quantity of land equal to one square furlong; racetrack for foot races; foot race”) [and other forms], from Old English furlang, furlung, from furh (“a furrow”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *perḱ- (“to dig; to open; to rip up”) + lang (“long”, adjective) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dlongʰos (“long”)), originally the typical length of a furrow in an average field.

nb...

ferlong, forelang, forelange, forelong, forelonge, forlang, forlange, forlonge, fourlonge, furelang, furelange, furelonge, furlang, furlange, furleng, furlonge, furlung, furowlong, (rare) furʒlong

inh

(British, dialectal) An undefined portion of an unenclosed field.

palsta

(obsolete except British, dialectal, agriculture)

Synonym of headland (“unploughed boundary of a field”).

Synonym of land (“the ground left unploughed between furrows”).

land

Synonym of land (“any of several portions into which a field is divided for ploughing”).


get one's kit off

en-verb

get one's kit off (third-person singular simple present gets one's kit off, present participle getting one's kit off, simple past and past participle got one's kit off)

gets one's kit off (present singular third-person)
getting one's kit off (participle present)
got one's kit off (participle past)
got one's kit off (past)

The woman in this film is not shy about getting her kit off, is she?

(British, slang) To undress or be naked.


leg it

leg it (third-person singular simple present legs it, present participle legging it, simple past and past participle legged it)

legs it (present singular third-person)
legging it (participle present)
legged it (participle past)
legged it (past)

After snatching my handbag he just legged it.

(intransitive, British, slang) To run away, to flee.

As soon as I heard about the fire I legged it over here as fast as I could.

(intransitive, British, slang) To hurry.


pain in the arse

en-noun

pain in the arse (plural pains in the arse)

pains in the arse (plural)
pain in the ass (alternative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pain in the arse.wav

You really are a pain in the arse, aren't you (laugh track)? The PM is going up the wall! Hitting the roof! You can't go around making speeches like that.

1980 February 25, Antony Jay, Jonathan Lynn, “Open Government”, in Yes Minister, season 1, episode 1, spoken by Vic Gould (Edward Jewesbury):

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, sometimes considered, vulgar) Someone or something that is annoying or frustrating.


piss

en-verb

piss (third-person singular simple present pisses, present participle pissing, simple past and past participle pissed)

pisses (present singular third-person)
pissing (participle present)
pissed (participle past)
pissed (past)

From Middle English pisse (noun) and pissen (verb), from Old French pissier, possibly from Vulgar Latin *pīssiāre, probably of imitative origin. Compare Old Norse pissa (“to urinate, piss”). Displaced Old English micge.

onom

imitative

"I'll piss this," I thought. "There's only Gary to beat and I beat him easily in both heats."

2018, Carl Fogarty, The World According to Foggy, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

(chiefly UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, transitive) To achieve easily.


tablespoon

tablespoons (plural)
table spoon (alternative)
table-spoon (alternative)

(Australia, New Zealand, Northern UK) A spoon too large for eating, usually used for cooking or serving.


prop

en-verb

prop (third-person singular simple present props, present participle propping, simple past and past participle propped)

props (present singular third-person)
propping (participle present)
propped (participle past)
propped (past)

From Middle English proppe (“a prop, support, support for a vine or plant”), from Middle Dutch proppe (“support, support for a vine, stopper for a bottle”). Compare Middle Low German proppe (“plug, stopper”), German Pfropfen (“plug”), Danish prop (“plug, stopper”).

cog

We used to go out into the roads (highway robbery) between races, and if we met an ‘old bloke’ (man) we ‘propped him’ (knocked him down), and robbed him.

1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861:

(transitive, UK, slang, obsolete) To knock (a person) down.


provost

From Middle English, from late Old English prōfost, prāfost, from Late Latin prōpositus, variant of Latin praepositus (“[one] placed in command”). In some senses, via Anglo-Norman provolt; via Anglo-Norman and Old French provost (modern French prévôt). As a Central European ecclesiastical office, via German Propst, Danish provst, etc.

steward

deputy overseeing medieval estates or fees

police officer

deputy overseeing medieval law enforcement; military police

One placed in charge: a head, a chief, particularly:

(UK, higher education) The head of various colleges and universities.

(UK, military slang, obsolete) A provost cell: a military cell or prison.


provost

en-verb

provost (third-person singular simple present provosts, present participle provosting, simple past and past participle provosted)

provosts (present singular third-person)
provosting (participle present)
provosted (participle past)
provosted (past)

Around the time of the Rebellions of 1837 and the First Anglo-Afghan War, British servicemen spoke of being provosted.

(UK, transitive, used in passive, obsolete, military slang) To be delivered to a provost marshal for punishment.


coach

→ Czech: kouč

→ Danish: coach

→ Dutch: coach

→ French: coach

→ German: Coach

→ Italian: coach

→ Japanese: コーチ (kōchi)

→ Korean: 코치 (kochi)

→ Malay: koc

→ Polish: coach

→ Spanish: coach

→ Swahili: kocha

→ Swedish: coach

Borrowed from Middle French coche, from German Kutsche, from Hungarian kocsi. According to historians, the coach was named after the small Hungarian town of Kocs, which made a livelihood from cart building and transport between Vienna and Budapest.
The meaning "instructor/trainer" is from Oxford University slang (c. 1830) for a "tutor" who "carries" one through an exam; the athletic sense is from 1861.

(rail transport, UK, Australia) A passenger car, either drawn by a locomotive or part of a multiple unit.

կառք

wheeled vehicle drawn by horse power — see also carriage

(British, Australia) A long-distance, or privately hired, bus.


trainer

→ Cebuano: trainor
→ English: trainor

(UK, Ireland) A running shoe or sneaker.


moist

moist (third-person singular simple present moists, present participle moisting, simple past and past participle moisted)

moists (present singular third-person)
moisting (participle present)
moisted (participle past)
moisted (past)

From Middle English moisten, moist, moiste (“to make moist or wet; to soak in liquid; to become moist or wet; to provide with moisture or water; to satisfy thirst with liquor or water, slake”) [and other forms], and then either:
* from Anglo-Norman muster (“to make moist or wet”), Middle French moistir, and Old French moistir (“to make moist or wet; to become moist or wet”) (compare enmoistir; modern French moitir), from Old French moiste, muste (“damp, moist, wet”) (see etymology 1) + -ir (suffix forming infinitives of second conjugation verbs); or
* from Middle English moist, moiste (adjective) (see etymology 1), though the adjective is first attested later.

der

He calleth for a ſponge (ſaith Theodoritus) and therevvith moiſteth and vvaſsheth Simeones mouthe, and then geueth him the holy Sacrament.

1566 January 30, Iohn Iewel [i.e. John Jewel], “M. [Thomas] Hardinge. The 21. Diuision.”, in A Replie unto M. Hardinges Ansvveare: […], London: […] Henry VVykes, →OCLC:

They [the legendary Fortunate Isles] haue raine there very ſeldom, howbeit a gentle winde commonly that bloweth in a litle ſiluer dew, which moiſteth the earth ſo finely, that it maketh it fertile and luſtie, not onely to bring forth all that is ſet or ſowen apon it but of it ſelfe without mans hand it beareth ſo good frute, as ſufficiently maintaineth the inhabitants dwelling apon it, liuing idlely, and taking no paines.

1579, Plutarke of Chæronea [i.e., Plutarch], “The Life of Sertorius”, in Thomas North, transl., The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romaines, […], London: […] Richard Field, →OCLC, page 629:

Now no more
The iuyce of Egypts Grape ſhall moyſt this lip.

c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], page 367, column 1:

(obsolete except British, regional and US) To make (something) moist or wet; to moisten.


carpet

en-verb

carpet (third-person singular simple present carpets, present participle carpeting, simple past and past participle carpeted)

carpets (present singular third-person)
carpeting (participle present)
carpeted (participle past)
carpeted (past)

From late Middle English carpette, from Old French carpite, from Medieval Latin carpita or Italian carpita, introduced in the 13th century by the Florentines from the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, from Middle Armenian կարպետ (karpet, “carpet, rug”), earlier կապերտ (kapert).

der

Even Colonel Yakov, so recently carpeted by St Petersburg, was reported to be back in the Pamirs.

1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society, published 2010, page 428:

At 4pm, the phone went. It was The Sun: 'We hear your daughter's been expelled for cheating at her school exams...'
She'd made a remark to a friend at the end of the German exam and had been pulled up for talking.
As they left the exam room, she muttered that the teacher was a 'twat'. He heard and flipped—a pretty stupid thing to do, knowing the kids were tired and tense after exams. Instead of dropping it, the teacher complained to the Head and Deb was carpeted.


cowboy

en-noun

cowboy (countable and uncountable, plural cowboys)

→ Catalan: cowboy

→ Dutch: cowboy

→ Estonian: kauboi

→ Finnish: cowboy

desctree

→ French: cow-boy, cowboy (rare, post-1990 spelling)
→ Vietnamese: cao bồi

→ German: Cowboy

→ Greek: καουμπόι (kaoumpói)

→ Hungarian: cowboy

→ Japanese: カウボーイ (kaubōi)

desc

→ Khmer: ខោវប៊យ (khaowbɔɔy), ខូវប៊ (khəwbɔɔ)

→ Korean: 카우보이 (kauboi)

→ Mandarin: 牛仔 (niúzǎi) (calque)

→ Norwegian Bokmål: cowboy

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: cowboy

→ Polish: kowboj

→ Portuguese: caubói, (Portugal) cobói, (unadapted form) cowboy

desctree

→ Russian: ковбо́й (kovbój)
→ Armenian: կովբոյ (kovboy)

→ Serbo-Croatian: kàuboj, ка̀убој

→ Spanish: cowboy

→ Swedish: cowboy

→ Thai: คาวบอย (kaao-bɔɔi)

PIE word
 *gʷṓws
From cow + boy. More on Wikipedia.

(British, informal) A dishonest or incompetent independent tradesman.


Mesopotamia

From the Classical Latin Mesopotamia, from the Koine Greek Μεσοποταμία (Mesopotamía), a feminine substantive form of the adjective Μεσοποτάμιος (Mesopotámios, “between rivers”), from the Ancient Greek μέσος (mésos, “between”) + ποτᾰμός (potămós, “river”) + -ιος (-ios), so called because Mesopotamia is located between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. Also used as a translation of the Biblical Hebrew נַהֲרַיִם (naharáyim), the dual form of נָהָר (nahár, “river”).

(UK, slang, obsolete) The Eaton Square district of London, England.


kebab

kebabs (plural)
kabaab (alternative)
kabob (alternative)
kebap (alternative)
kabab (alternative)
kebob (alternative)

From Arabic كَبَاب (kabāb), partly through Urdu, Persian and Turkish kebap. Doublet of cevapi. See the Arabic entry for more.

(British) A dish of pieces of meat, fish, or vegetables roasted on a skewer or spit, especially a doner kebab.


anticlockwise

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, of movement) In a circular fashion so as to be moving to the left at the top of the circle and to the right at the bottom (when viewed from the front), in the opposite direction to the hands of an analog clock.

en el sentit antihorari

in the opposite direction to the hands of an analogue clock

dans le sens inverse des aiguilles d’une montre

საათის ისრის საწინააღმდეგო მიმართულებით

saatis isris sac̣inaaɣmdego mimartulebit moʒravi

საათის ისრის საწინააღმდეგო მიმართულებით მოძრავი

saatis isris saṗirisṗiro mimartulebit moʒravi

საათის ისრის საპირისპირო მიმართულებით მოძრავი

en sentido contrario al movimiento de las agujas de un reloj

སྐོར་ལོག (skor log, literally “the backwards way around”)

ཕྱི་སྐོར (phyi skor, literally “the non-Buddhist way around”)

གཡོན་འཁྱིལ (g.yon 'khyil, literally “left-winding”)


anticlockwise

(Commonwealth, UK, Ireland) In an anticlockwise fashion.

dans le sens contraire des aiguilles d’une montre

en sentido contrario ás agullas do reloxo

antítheta me tin forá ton deiktón tou rologioú

αντίθετα με την φορά των δεικτών του ρολογιού

no sentido contrário aos ponteiros do relógio

en sentido contrario a las agujas del reloj

en sentido contrario a las manecillas del reloj

སྤྱི་སྐོར (spyi skor, literally “the non-Buddhist way around”)


battle

battles (plural)
batail (alternative)
battel (alternative)
battell (alternative)

From Middle English batel, batell, batelle, batayle, bataylle, borrowed from Old French bataille, from Late Latin battālia, variant of battuālia (“fighting and fencing exercises”) from Latin battuō (“to strike, hit, beat, fight”), of uncertain origin. Possibly from a Gaulish or Proto-Germanic root from Proto-Indo-European *bʰedʰ- (“to stab, dig”), related to Old English beado (“battle”); or possibly from a Proto-Indo-European *bʰew- (“to hit, strike, beat”). Doublet of battalia and battel. Displaced native Old English ġefeoht, beado, camp, and wīg (“battle”), among others.

պայքար

struggle; a contest; as, the battle of life

Father Charles goes down and ends battle

no battle plan survives contact with the enemy

no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy


appropriate

en-verb

appropriate (third-person singular simple present appropriates, present participle appropriating, simple past and past participle appropriated)

appropriates (present singular third-person)
appropriating (participle present)
appropriated (participle past)
appropriated (past)

From Middle English appropriaten, from appropriat (“appropriated”) + -en, borrowed from Latin appropriātus, perfect passive participle of appropriō (“to make one's own”), from ad (“to”) + propriō (“to make one's own”), from proprius (“one's own, private”) + -ō (first conjugation verb-forming suffix).

af

Some [benefices] were appropriated to secular ecclesiastical corporations

176, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, book, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:

(transitive, British, ecclesiastical, law) To annex (for example a benefice, to a spiritual corporation, as its property).


noughties

From nought (“zero”) + -ies (“plural of -y”), in imitation of the names of other decades (twenties, thirties, etc).

Noughties (alternative)
Naughties (alternative)
naughties (alternative)

Our readers — and contributors — are apt to elect a good deal according to years. The seventies and eighties, we may suppose, are concerned for the large educational and cultural interests of their Alma Mater; the nineties are deep in the practical and business activities; the noughties are not naughty, but still young enough to sport a fantastic costume at reunion and let the college wag as it will; the oneties are the really wise as to what the college ought to be, especially on its athletic side, but as contributors modest.

1914, Amherst College, “Amherst graduates' quarterly”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 4, page 6:

I doubt if any modern poet can boast of as loud acclaim or as liberal reward as Longfellow received for Evangeline or Tennyson for the Idylls, but his fate today is somewhat kinder than that of Poe or Whitman, and much gentler than the stony dole dealt out to poets in the nineties and noughties.

1933, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, volume 43, Chicago, page 36:

During the Naughty Noughties, Jim was worth between ten and twelve million dollars and his income was more than even he could reasonably spend.

1934, Parker Morell, Diamond Jim: The Life and Times of James Buchanan Brady, page 219:

Every young woman with "advanced" ideas must live in Paris during the decade of the "noughties," as they were dubbed by some wit.

1966, Jean Gould, Modern American playwrights, page 30:

2009 [2006], Naomi Rosh White, “Tertiary education in the noughties: the student perspective”, in Malcolm Tight, editor, The Routledge international handbook of higher education:

2008, Cunningham, Gleeson, Regional Cultural Centre Letterkenny, Painting in the noughties: 21st century British and Irish abstract painting:

An obsession with designer handbags, at ever-spiralling prices, became a phenomenon of the mid-noughties, driven principally by Louis Vuitton.

2009, Brenda Polan, Roger Tredre, The Great Fashion Designers, page 237:

The noughties are the bridge between the pre-internet era, and the life we live now.

2021 November 5, Jess Cartner-Morley, “The noughties are back – but do they warrant a revival?”, in The Guardian:

(chiefly UK, sometimes capitalized) The decade consisting of the last year of the previous century and the first nine years of the next: from 1900 to 1909, 2000 to 2009, etc.

teens · twenties · thirties · forties · fifties · sixties · seventies · eighties · nineties

Gay Nineties · Naughty Nineties · Roaring Twenties · Dirty Thirties · Swinging Sixties


loony left

Tories Play Loony Left Card

1986: Headline in The Guardian, 18 Nov 1986

The Earl of Halsbury ([Hansard] 1986 p310) spoke of how he had been ‘warned that the loony left is hardening up the lesbian camp and that they are becoming increasingly aggressive'.

1988, Michael Urben, Biography and Education:

1988: John Twitchin, Introduction to The Black and White Media Book
The term ‘anti-racist' has become associated with ‘left-wing sentimentality', not to say ‘loony left extremism'.

I sold the story to The Sun for school funds. They led with TROUBLESOME TOT over another piece about LESBIAN LOONY LEFT IN RIOTS.

1989: Fred Sedgwick, Here Comes the Assembly Man: A Year in the Life of a Primary School (referring to an event in 1988)

They claimed that the London Boroughs Grant Scheme should be eliminated so that ‘public money' would no longer be spent on ‘"loony left" projects such as black lesbian groups'.

1992: Kenneth (EDT) Plummer, Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of Lesbian and Gay Experiences, referring to "leaflets distributed by the Conservative Party local constituency association in Surbiton before the May 1991 elections"

The exaggerations of the Thatcher [Conservative] governments, and the fabrications of the tabloid press, concerning the measures invoked by certain Labour councils in order to tackle discrimination and disadvantage led to coinage of the term 'loony Left'. The Government and its allies in the media ridiculed and reviled the principles and policies of such Labour councils, leading people to believe that one would not be allocated a job or house unless one was a disabled vegetarian single-parent lesbian from an 'ethnic minority' background.

1995, Peter Dorey, British Politics Since 1945:

The republican resolution was an example of the influence of the 'loony left' in the Labor Party.

1996: Mark McKenna, The Captive Republic: A History of Republicanism in Australia 1788-1996 (quoting Dr John Hewson, Leader of the Opposition)

[Political correctness] flourished for a while in what became known as ‘loony left' local authorities where public policies passionately favoured minority needs, the dubious as well as the deserving.

1996, Understanding Journalism, John Wilson:

[Linda] Bellos, who was active in promoting lesbian rights as well as supporting black community initiatives, was depicted as the embodiment of the ‘loony left' and her commitment to opposing racism, sexism and homophobia was caricatured.

1998, Julia Sudbury, Other Kinds of Dreams: Black Women's Organizations and the Politics of Transformation:

The Christic Institute, the looniest fringe group of the loony left, which publicised a number of bizarre conspiracy theories in which virtually every ill on earth could be traced to "secret teams" at the CIA involved in the narcotics trade.

1999, Barbara Olsen, Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton:

In most cases, they follow not the loony left in the Legislature, but Bush's biggest California backer, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

2006, Peter Schrag, California: America's High-Stakes Experiment:

(British, Australia, New Zealand, derogatory, politics) Left-wing politicians or activists whose policies or ideas are considered to be ridiculous or too politically correct.


non-alcoholic

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-non-alcoholic.wav

(chiefly British) Alternative form of nonalcoholic.


fry

From Middle English fryen, borrowed from Old French frire, from Latin frīgō (“to roast, fry”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-. Cognate with Ancient Greek φρύγω (phrúgō, “I roast, bake”), Sanskrit भृज्जति (bhṛjjati, “to roast, grill, fry”), भृग् (bhṛg, “the crackling of fire”). Replaced native Middle English hirsten, from Old English hierstan (“to fry”).

cog

(Ireland, British, cooking) A meal of fried sausages, bacon, eggs, etc.


fry

From Middle English frie (“spawn of fish, young or small fish, offspring, progeny, children”), probably from Old Norse frjó (“seed, semen”), from Proto-Germanic *fraiwą (“seed, semen, offspring”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)per-, *(s)prey- (“to strew, sow”). Cognate with Icelandic frjó (“pollen, seed”), Icelandic fræ (“seed”), Swedish frö (“seed, embryo, grain, germ”), Danish and Norwegian frø (“seed”), Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌹𐍅 (fraiw, “seed”). Likely merging with Old French froiz, froie (“spawn, spawning”), from froier, freier (“to spawn”), from Latin fricō (“to rub”). The Middle English is attested earlier than the terms in Old French, and the Anglo-Norman forms frie, fry are borrowings from the Middle English. Compare friable.

cog

(now chiefly UK dialectal) Offspring; progeny; children; brood.


maybe

From an ellipsis of Middle English it may be, equivalent to may + be. Compare mayhap.

mebbe (alternative dialectal)
may-be (alternative obsolete)

Maybe not the best idea.


too posh to push

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-too posh to push.wav

(British, colloquial) Of a woman or women, preferring to have a Caesarean section rather than undergo natural childbirth.


programme

/ˈpɹoʊˌɡɹæm/

Our programme for today’s exercise class includes swimming and jogging.

The programme about Greek architecture starts at 9:00 on Channel 4.

ITEC is the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme.

It had been arranged as part of the day's programme that Mr. Cooke was to drive those who wished to go over the Rise in his new brake.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

Thus once a computer programme has been prepared, vastly different conditions can be inserted and experimented with at the expense of a few hours of computer time.

1961, New Scientist, volume 9, number 226, page 679:

It had been sixteen years since the BBC’s Grace Wyndham Goldie wrote her internal memo about luring him back to make sociological/scientific TV programmes. Now a second note had circulated, from the science department, proposing that he should present the Corporation’s next educative megaseries.

2012, Kate Bassett, “Mid-Seventies Onwards: Operatic beginnings and The Body in Question”, in In Two Minds: A Biography of Jonathan Miller, London: Oberon Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 219:

British, New Zealand, and India standard spelling of program.

(British, rare) Alternative spelling of program (“computer program”).


programme

en-verb

programme (third-person singular simple present programmes, present participle programming, simple past and past participle programmed)

programmes (present singular third-person)
programming (participle present)
programmed (participle past)
programmed (past)

/ˈpɹoʊˌɡɹæm/


fount

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-fount.wav

A variant of font, influenced by fount (etymology 1) being a synonym of font (“natural source of water, spring”).

Of each Body he provides a Fount ſuitable to ſuch ſorts of VVork as he deſigns to do; But he provides not an equal vvieght^([sic – meaning weight]) of every Fount; Becauſe all theſe Bodies are not in equal uſe: For the Long-Primmer, Pica and Engliſh are the Bodies that are generally moſt uſed; And therefore he provides very large Founts of theſe, viz. of the Long-Primmer in a ſmall Printing-Houſe; Five hundred Pounds vveight Romain and Italica, vvhereof One hundred and fifty Pounds may be Italica.

1683, Joseph Moxon, “Numb[er] II. Applied to the Art of Printing.”, in Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. […], volume II, London: […] Joseph Moxon […], →OCLC, § 2 (Of Letter), page 17:

Founts are large or ſmall, according to the demand of the printer. vvho orders them by the hundred vveight, or by ſheets. VVhen a printer orders a fount of five hundred, he means that the fount, conſiſting of letters, points, ſpaces, quadrates, &c. ſhall vveigh 500 ℔. […] [A] fount does not contain an equal number of a and b, or of b and c, &c. the letter-founders have therefore a lift or tariff, or as the French call it, a police, by vvhich they regulate the proportions betvveen the different ſorts of characters that compoſe a fount; […]

1765, Temple Henry Croker, Thomas Williams, Samuel Clark [et al.], “FOUNT, or Font”, in The Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. […], volume II, London: […] J. Wilson & J. Fell, […], →OCLC, signature [Kk3], verso, column 1:

For the small characters it was in fact imperative to use such a fount as was available; not to mention that no strictly accurate fount of Chinese type has as yet been cast.

1892, Herbert Giles, “Preface”, in A Chinese–English Dictionary, London: Bernard Quaritch […]; Shanghai; Hongkong: Kelly and Walsh, →OCLC, page v:

Mr. Tallboy corrected the misprints, damned their eyes for using the wrong name-block, made it clear to them that they had set the headlines in the wrong fount, cut the proof to pieces, pasted it up again in the correct size, and returned it.

1933, Dorothy L[eigh] Sayers, “Murder Must Advertise. Chapter 4. Remarkable Acrobatics of a Harlequin.”, in The Five Red Herrings (Suspicious Characters) and Murder Must Advertise, Garden City, N.Y.: Nelson Doubleday, published [1977?], →OCLC, page 344:

The company is to be congratulated on the neatness and businesslike look of the tickets, and also on the very clear and artistic founts of type which are used.

1940 May, G. W. J. Potter, “Tickets of the Great Southern Railways”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 292:

(UK, printing, typography, chiefly dated, historical) Synonym of font (“a set of glyphs of unified design, usually representing the letters of an alphabet and its supplementary characters belonging to one typeface, style, and weight; a typeface; a family of typefaces”).


till

From Middle English tylle (“till”), possibly from Middle English tillen (“to draw”) from Old English *tyllan (“to draw, attract”) (as in betyllan (“to lure, decoy”) and fortyllan (“to draw away”); related to *tollian > Middle English tollen). Cognate with Albanian ndjell (“I lure, attract”).
Alternatively, Middle English tylle is from Anglo-Norman tylle (“compartment”), from Old French tille (“compartment, shelter on a ship”), from Old Norse þilja (“plank”).

der

I got most of the money to pay for all this by stealing. It was very wrong. Today I'm so finickity that I fired one of my staff for nicking twenty-pence worth of curtain hangers from Barkers because he couldn't be bothered to wait at the till queue.

2005, Michael Winner, Winner Takes All, →ISBN, page 11:


presenteeism

From presentee + -ism, after absenteeism, coined by academic Cary Cooper.

Research shows that presenteeism, apart from the obvious danger of contamination of other workers, can lead to longer absence from work later on.

2016, Slavina Spasova, Denis Bouget and Bart Vanhercke, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, December 2016

Organisations that have noticed an increase in presenteeism are nearly twice as likely to report an increase in stress-related absence and more than twice as likely to report an increase in mental health problems among their staff too.

2016 September 19, Peter Cheese, The Guardian:

Employers should guarantee sick pay, including for contacts of known cases, and do everything they can to discourage the practice of “presenteeism”.

2020 March 15, William Hanage, “I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire”, in The Guardian:

"This also contributes to 'presenteeism', where people work when they are not at their most productive, and the newer trend of 'leaveism' where employees feel they must work outside of their normal hours."

2020 June 1, Paul Stephen, “Mental health in the workplace”, in Rail, page 50:

(chiefly UK) The fact of being present at work, especially if one is too sick to be productive, or working beyond the expected hours.


ward

en-noun

ward (countable and uncountable, plural wards)

→ Swahili: wodi

From Middle English ward, warde, from Old English weard (“watching, ward, protection, guardianship; advance post; waiting for, lurking, ambuscade”), from Proto-West Germanic *wardu, from Proto-Germanic *wardō (“protection, attention, keeping”), an extension of the stem *wara- (“attentive”) (English wary, beware), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to cover”).
Cognate with German Warte (“watchtower”), warten (“wait for”); English guard is a parallel form which came via Old French.

inh

A protected place, and by extension, a type of subdivision.


fletcher

Inherited from Middle English fleccher, from Old French flechier; equivalent to fletch + -er.

[…] the defendants cut down and lowered, and kept and continued so cut down and lowered, a part of the bank of the said river, situate and being between the mill of the defendants and the mill of the plaintiff, and on a part of the said bank so lowered, built and erected, and kept and continued so built and erected, a certain weir or fletcher, and by that means caused large quantities of the water of the said river, which otherwise would, and always before had, and still of right ought to have flowed to and through the plaintiff's mill, to flow in a new course or channel, […] and the said weir or fletcher, built and erected there by the defendant Inge in the month of June 1822; […]

1831, Liggins v. Inge, T. T. 1831 (court case), in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the English Courts (1832), page 289

They [some boards] had been washed away from the fletcher by the flood.

1896 September 5, Evesham Journal, quoted in the English Dialect Dictionary

You saw the river as you came along. Just above that bridge where you crossed there is a fletcher - weir, as some call them. Diver [a dog] used to cross the stream regular by running over the fletcher, and the other dogs picked up the trick from him.

1902, The Windsor Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly for Men and Women, page 451:

(UK, dialect, possibly dated) A weir or dam.


wonder

en-noun

wonder (countable and uncountable, plural wonders)

From Middle English wonder, wunder, from Old English wundor (“wonder, miracle, marvel”), from Proto-West Germanic *wundr, from Proto-Germanic *wundrą.
Cognate with Scots wunner (“wonder”), West Frisian wonder, wûnder (“wonder, miracle”), Dutch wonder (“miracle, wonder”), Low German wunner, wunder (“wonder”), German Wunder (“miracle, wonder”), Danish, Norwegian and Swedish under (“wonder, miracle”), Icelandic undur (“wonder”).
The verb is from Middle English wondren, from Old English wundrian, which is from Proto-Germanic *wundrōną. Cognate with Saterland Frisian wunnerje, West Frisian wûnderje, Dutch wonderen, German Low German wunnern, German wundern, Swedish undra, Icelandic undra.

inh

Miss Paynter had a little wonder as to whether the man, as she called Mr. Lacy in her own mind, had ever been admitted to this room. She thought not.

1934, Katharine Tynan, The house of dreams:

(UK, informal) A mental pondering, a thought.


arsehole

en-noun

arsehole (countable and uncountable, plural arseholes)

arseholes (plural)
asshole (alternative)

From Middle English arce-hoole, equivalent to arse + hole. Compare Old English ears-þyrel (“anus”, literally “arse-hole”).

cog

(UK, Ireland, vulgar, uncountable) A variant of the card game big two.


starter

(historical, British) A short length of rope formerly used for casual chastisement in the Navy.


fuckwit

“Gizmo, you sound like a fuckwit.”

2024 November 25, Max Brockman, “P.I. Undercover: New York” (5:34 from the start), in What We Do in the Shadows, season 6, episode 8, spoken by Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry):


cubic centimetre

en-noun

cubic centimetre (plural cubic centimetres)

cubic centimetres (plural)
cubic centimeter (alternative)

A unit of volume equal to that of a cube having sides each one centimetre in length, equal to 10⁻⁶ cubic metres and 1 millilitre. Commonly used in fluid measure and for engine sizes.


batty boy

batty boys (plural)
batty bwoy (alternative)
bawty boy (alternative)

From Caribbean slang batty (“buttocks”) + boy (“person”).

(Jamaica, Caribbean, UK, Canada derogatory slang) A homosexual man.


closet

→ Czech: klozet

→ Polish: klozet

→ Spanish: clóset

→ Welsh: closet

From Middle English closet, from Old French closet, from clos (“private space”) + -et (diminutive suffix), from Latin clausum. Equivalent to close + -et, but generally applied in French solely to small open-air enclosures.

cupboard

storage area set into a wall, used for storing food or dishware

wardrobe

piece of furniture, used for storing clothes

cupboard

piece of furniture, used for storing food or dishware

(now chiefly Scotland, Ireland) Any small room or side room.

(obsolete) Clipping of closet of ease, (later, UK) clipping of water closet: a room containing a toilet.


bender

Hypotheses:
* bend + -er. In sense of “heavy drinking”, originally generally “spree”, from 1846, of uncertain origin – vague contemporary sense of “something extraordinary”, connection to bend (e.g., bending elbow to drink (bend one's elbow)) or perhaps from Scottish sense of “strong drinker”.
* In Britain, for about four centuries, a sixpence was known as a bender because its silver content made it easy to bend in the hands. This was commonly done to create ‘love tokens’, many of which survive in collections to this day. The value of a sixpence was also enough to get thoroughly inebriated as taverns would often allow you to drink all day for two pence. This gave rise to the expression ‘going on a bender’.
* (interjection): From over the bender, referring to a person's arm (and sometimes accompanied by a gesture of the thumb backward over the shoulder); compare over the left shoulder.

“So they're easy about having a bender in the house, are they, their lordships?”

2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 6, in The Line of Beauty […], London: Picador, →ISBN:

(chiefly UK, slang, derogatory) A homosexual man.

'Oh and Gary, what happened in Ahmed?' 'Not guilty, sir.' 'Oh no! And Tredwell?' 'Bender.' 'Suspended sentence? So both walked. […]

2015, Olly Jarvis, Death by Dangerous, page 81:

He anticipated a prison sentence though he thought there was a slight possibility of 'getting off on a bender' (suspended sentence).

2019, Howard Williamson, Youth and Policy: Contexts and Consequences:

What will you take to be paid out?’ said the butcher. ‘The regular chummage is two–and–six. Will you take three bob?’ ‘And a bender,’ suggested the clerical gentleman. ‘Well, I don’t mind that; it’s only twopence a piece more,’ said Mr. Martin. ‘What do you say, now? We’ll pay you out for three–and–sixpence a week. Come!’

1836, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers 42


mozzie

2012, John Basham, Caravan Survival Guide, Explore Australia Publishing, unnumbered page,
As they can carry some dreadful diseases, mozzie defence is very important. It seems the types of mozzies and midges change from area to area.

(UK, Australia, New Zealand) Alternative form of mossie (“mosquito”).


bogie

bogies (plural)
bogey (alternative)
bogy (alternative)

A dialectal word from Northern England of unknown origin which is unrelated to bogey (“hostile supernatural creature; terrifying thing, bugbear”).

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-bogie.wav

The bogie coaches which he spoke of last year had been brought or were being brought into active service, but they had no further wagon stock available.

1917 October 12, “Company Meetings. [Assam Railways and Trading.]”, in The Near East: A Weekly Review of Oriental Politics, Literature, Finance, and Commerce, volume XIII, number 336, London: The Near East Editorial and Publishing Offices, →OCLC, page 479, column 3:

Although we took our eight bogies along to Whitstable at 60 m.p.h., and made a clean start from there, after Herne Bay the engine primed badly on Blacksole Bank and nearly stopped before we got over the top. Then we ran like the wind across the marshes with half-regulator, 30 per cent cut-off, and the engine blowing off.

1959 April, P. Ransome-Wallis, “The Southern in Trouble on the Kent Coast”, in Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 220:

Hard work is required from men and machines as I was to experience later when footplating Lambton No 5 on five bogies battling its way up Newtondale.

1979 August, Michael Harris, “A line for all reasons: the North Yorkshire Moors Railway”, in Railway World, page 415:

[...] Ashoke was still reading at two-thirty in the morning, one of the few passengers on the train who was awake, when the locomotive engine and seven bogies derailed from the broad-gauge line. The first four bogies capsized into a depression alongside the track.

2003 September, Jhumpa Lahiri, chapter 1, in The Namesake, New York, N.Y.: Mariner Books, published 2004, →ISBN, page 17:

(British, India, rail transport) A railway carriage.


bogie

Reluctantly Raj used his fingernail to prise away the bogie he had long since sneezed up there and popped it in his mouth.

2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

(British, colloquial) A piece of dried mucus in or removed from the nostril.


bogey

bogeys (plural)
bogie (alternative)
bogy (alternative)

Probably related to or alteration of bogle, akin to or from a variant of Middle English bugge (“frightening specter, scarecrow”) (whence bug), itself of uncertain origin: perhaps from obsolete Welsh bwg (“ghost, hobgoblin”); compare Welsh bwgwl (“threat”, older “fear”), Irish bagairt (“threat”), but perhaps the root was borrowed from Germanic. Otherwise from Proto-Germanic *bugja- (“swollen up, thick”); compare Norwegian bugge (“big man”), dialectal Low German Bögge and Alemannic German Böögg (“goblin”, “snot”).
See also Proto-Germanic *pūkô (“a goblin, spook”), Old English pūca (“goblin, mischievous spirit”), Icelandic púki Swedish puke (“small devil, spook”), whence obsolete English puck. Perhaps the Middle English and Welsh words come from a word related to buck and originally referred to a goat-shaped specter. Compare also booger.
The golf sense is from the devil as an imaginary player.

cog

Green’s Dictionary of Slang
w:Green's Dictionary of Slang

The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

w:A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

(UK) Alternative form of booger: a piece of mucus in or removed from the nostril.


bogey

Clipping of bog-standard + -ey (diminutive suffix).

(UK, engineering) A bog-standard (representative) specimen taken from the center of production.


bogey

Upgrading the tram bogeys to air-conditioned bogeys costs the State Government approximately INR 25,00,000/- per bogey.

2020 January 30, “Upgrading Kolkata's Tram Network”, in C40 Cities, archived from the original on 2024-02-25:

(British, dated, India, rail transport) Alternative spelling of bogie (“railway carriage”).


PRC

Pesticide Residues Committee
Pesticide Residues Committee#English

(British) Initialism of Pesticide Residues Committee.


misdemeanor

misdemeanors (plural)
misdemeanour (alternative)

(law, criminology, historical in UK) A lesser criminal act in most common law legal systems, generally punished less severely than a felony.


felony

felonies (plural)
fellonie (alternative)

From Middle English felony, felonie, from Old French felonie (“evil, immoral deed”), from felon (“evildoer”). Ultimately of Proto-Germanic origin. More at felon. By surface analysis, felon + -y.

der

First, as felony prosecutor, I prosecute high-level felonies including homicides; sexual assaults; child endangerings; shootings and other felonious assaults; and media cases.

2015, Kenneth J. Peak, Pamela M. Everett, Introduction to Criminal Justice: Practice and Process:

Many experts have also expressed skepticism about the significance of this case and its legal underpinnings, which employed an unusual legal theory to seek a felony charge for what is more commonly a misdemeanor, and Mr. Trump will undoubtedly seek an appeal.

2024 May 30, The Editorial Board, “Donald Trump, Felon”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(law, criminology, US, historical in UK) A serious criminal offense, which, under United States federal law, is punishable by a term of imprisonment of not less than one year or by the death penalty in the most serious offenses.


pax

From Middle English pax and Latin pax (“peace”). Doublet of peace. See peace. As school slang, originally used at Winchester College, Hampshire, in the United Kingdom.

to make pax with someone

to be good pax (i.e., good friends)

"I say, Lu! I'm sorry I didn't believe you. I see now you were right all along. Do come out. Make it Pax."

1950, C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:

(British, dated, school slang) Friendship; truce.


pax

(UK, dated, school slang) A cry for peace or truce in children's games.


righto

right-ho (alternative)
righteo (alternative)
rightio (alternative)
right-oh (alternative)
right-o (alternative)

"You can count me in." "It may be really rather formidable. We shall have possibly to tackle a prize-fighter." "Right-o!" said Malone, cheerfully.

1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “Which Introduces Some Very Physical Phenomena”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

(colloquial, especially British, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland) Okay; all right.


sprog

en-noun

sprog (countable and uncountable, plural sprogs)

1940s, originally service slang. Perhaps from obsolete sprag (“lively young man”), of unknown origin.

To test this hypothesis further, he and his mate Fifer persuaded 16 women, heavy with child, to read a story called The Cat in the Hat to their unborn sprogs, twice a day, during the last few weeks of their pregnancies.

1984 September 13, Donald Gould, Forum: Suck it and see, page 54:

Any guardianship or trusts that you set up when your children were little sprogs may no longer be needed.

2008, Julian Knight, Wills, Probate, & Inheritance Tax For Dummies, UK, unnumbered page:

Kids will love the climbing wall and NZ′s highest vertical slide. If the sprogs get bored with reality, movie make-believe (p232) is right next door.

2010, Brett Atkinson, Sarah Bennett, Scott Kennedy, New Zealand′s South Island, Lonely Planet, page 220:

(UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, informal, humorous) A child.

(UK, military, RAF, slang, derogatory) A new recruit.


sprog

en-verb

sprog (third-person singular simple present sprogs, present participle sprogging, simple past and past participle sprogged)

sprogs (present singular third-person)
sprogging (participle present)
sprogged (participle past)
sprogged (past)

You must have been terrified, it′s not like today with film stars sprogging babies everywhere.

2007, Libby Purves, Love Songs and Lies, unnumbered page:

‘How′s it all going with your boyo in the valleys? Any plans for sprogging or vows or anything serious yet?’

2008, Lucy Diamond, Over You, unnumbered page:

‘Women lose their sexual drive after they′ve sprogged,’ Norman Potting interjected.

2009, Peter James, Dead Tomorrow, unnumbered page:

(UK, Australia, slang, humorous) To produce children.


fin

Dutch language
German language
Latin language
Middle English language
Old English language
Old Irish language
Proto-Germanic language
Proto-Indo-European language
Swedish language
Tocharian A language
fin
fin (disambiguation)

From Middle English fin, from Old English finn, from Proto-Germanic *finnō, *finǭ (“dorsal fin”) (compare Dutch vin, German Finne, Swedish finne, fena), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pīn- (“backbone, dorsal fin”) (compare Old Irish ind (“end, point”), Latin pinna (“feather, wing, fin”), Tocharian A spin (“hook”).

der-lite

"Done say I to that, Reuben, tip me your fin, my spark, and it shall be a bet."

1839, Dearden's Miscellany, volumes 1-2, page 661:


fin

Yiddish language
fin
fin (disambiguation)

From Yiddish פֿינף (finf, “five”). Doublet of cinque, finnuf, five, pimp (“five”), ponzu, punch (“beverage”), and sengi (“currency”).

doublet

(UK, formerly Australia, slang) a five-pound (£5) note; the sum of five pounds.


off

en-adj

off (comparative more off, superlative most off)

more off (comparative)
most off (superlative)
offn (alternative)

(older Received Pronunciation, General American) -ɔːf

From Middle English of, from Old English of, af, æf (“from, off, away”), from Proto-West Germanic *ab, from Proto-Germanic *ab (“from”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂epo (“from, off, back”). Doublet of of.
Cognates
Cognate with Scots of, af (“off, away”), West Frisian af, ôf (“off, away”), Dutch af (“off, from”), German Low German of (“off, from”), German ab (“off, from”), Danish af (“of, off”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish av (“of, off”), Icelandic af (“of, off”), Gothic 𐌰𐍆 (af, “of, from”); and with Latin ab (“of, from, by”), Ancient Greek ἀπό (apó, “from”), and others.

inh

This milk is off!

Denoting something faulty, unsatisfactory, objectionable etc.

The off front wheel came loose.

The man and the horse came closer and were Sonny Jacobs of the Diamond Six and a smallish neat sorrel definitely favouring its off forefoot.

1963, Jack Schaefer, Monte Walsh, page 174:

(British, in relation to a vehicle) On the side furthest from the kerb (the right-hand side if one drives on the left).


patron

From Middle English patroun, patrone, from Old French patron, from Latin patrōnus, derived from pater (“father”). Doublet of padrone, Patronus, patroon, and pattern.

doublet

(UK, ecclesiastical) One who has gift and disposition of a benefice.


sub

* Shortened form of any of various words beginning with sub-.

According to the best available information, GALAXY has several times as many subs as any other science fiction magazine!

1951, H. L. Gold, “Annual Report”, in Galaxy Science Fiction, volume 2, number 6, page 2:

My friend Keith got me a sub to your paper for my Christmas present.

1985 February 2, 18, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 28, page 18:

(British, informal, often in plural) Clipping of subscription (“a payment made for membership of a club, etc.”).


sub

en-verb

sub (third-person singular simple present subs, present participle subbing, simple past and past participle subbed)

subs (present singular third-person)
subbing (participle present)
subbed (participle past)
subbed (past)

switch

one who is willing to take either a sadistic or a masochistic role

He never really made a contribution to the match, so it was no surprise when he was subbed at half time.

(British, informal, soccer) To replace (a player) with a substitute.

He was subbed on half way through the second half, and scored within minutes.

(British, informal, soccer, less common, often as "sub on") To bring on (a player) as a substitute.

(British) To perform the work of a subeditor or copy editor; to subedit.

I kept up the pleasantries as we were drying our hands and, realizing I didn't have any change for the lodger, I asked him, one drummer to another like, if he could sub me a quid for the dish.

2011, Rowland Rivron, What the F*** Did I Do Last Night?:

(UK, slang, transitive) To lend (a person) money.


brave

en-adj

brave (comparative braver or more brave, superlative bravest or most brave)

braver (comparative)
more brave (comparative)
bravest (superlative)
most brave (superlative)

From Middle French brave, borrowed from Italian bravo, itself of uncertain origin (see there). Doublet of bravo.


wait

From Middle English waiten, from Anglo-Norman waiter, waitier (compare French guetter from Old French gaitier, guaitier), from Frankish *wahtwēn (“to watch, guard”), derivative of Frankish *wahtu (“guard, watch”), from Proto-Germanic *wahtwō (“guard, watch”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵ- (“to be fresh, cheerful, awake”).
Cognate with Old High German wahtēn (“to watch, guard”), German Low German wachten (“to wait”), Dutch wachten (“to wait, expect”), French guetter (“to watch out for”), Saterland Frisian wachtje (“to wait”), West Frisian wachtsje (“to wait”), North Frisian wachtjen (“to stand, stay put”). More at watch.
In some senses, merged or influenced by Middle English waiten, weiten (“to do good to, lie in wait for, to contrive good or harm on, catch, snare”), from Old Norse veita (“to give help to, assist, grant, cause to happen”), from Proto-Germanic *waitijaną (“to show, guide, advise, direct”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to see, know”).
Largely overtook native Middle English biden, from Old English bīdan.

der

[…]as he returned home to his owne house, the waits should sound the hautboies all the way

1659, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “[Book XVII]”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] W. Hunt, for George Sawbridge, […], →OCLC:

(in the plural, obsolete, UK) Hautboys, or oboes, played by town musicians.

Hark! are the waits abroad?

1609–1612, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Captaine”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act II, scene ii:

1819-1820, Washington Irving, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon
The sound of the waits, rude as may be their minstrelsy, breaks upon the mild watches of a winter night with the effect of perfect harmony.

[…] the waits begin their rounds, and going from house to house, […] they sing carols and Christmas hymns until […] another Christmas-day has dawned.[…]

1890, Algernon Blackwood, Christmas in England:

(in the plural, UK) Musicians who sing or play at night or in the early morning, especially at Christmas time; serenaders; musical watchmen. [formerly waites, wayghtes.]


office

Tok Pisin: opis

→ Belarusian: о́фіс (ófis)

→ Bulgarian: о́фис (ófis)

→ Cebuano: opis

→ Chichewa: ofesi

→ Central Dusun: upis

→ Iban: opis

→ Japanese: オフィス

→ Marshallese: wōpij

→ Malay: opis

→ Russian: о́фис (ófis)

→ Scottish Gaelic: oifis

→ Swahili: afisi

→ Tausug: upis

→ Ukrainian: о́фіс (ófis)

Microsoft Office
office (disambiguation)

From Middle English office, from Old French office, from Latin officium (“personal, official, or moral duty; official position; function; ceremony, esp. last rites”), contracted from opificium (“construction: the act of building or the thing built”), from opifex (“doer of work, craftsman”) + -ium (“-y”, forming actions), from op- (“work”) + -i- (connective) + -fex (combining form of faciō (“to do, to make”)).
The use in reference to office software is a genericization of various proprietary program suites, such as Microsoft Office.

zyrë

room(s) or building used for non-manual work

The secretary of state's British colleague heads the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

(figuratively, in large organizations) The administrative departments housed in such places, particularly:

(UK, Australia, usually capitalized, with clarifying modifier) A ministry or other department of government.

If they find the treason or felony... of the party accused... the king is thereupon, by virtue of this office found, intitled to have his forfeitures.

1768, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, volume III, page 259:

If the Crown claimed the land of an idiot, the person had first to be found an idiot by office.

1977, John McDonald Burke, Jowitt's Dictionary of English Law, volume I, page 280:

inquest of office
inquest of office#English

(UK law, historical) Clipping of inquest of office:

I withdraw into ‘the office’, otherwise the observer's cockpit.

1917, Alan Bott, An Airman's Outings, page 161:

In the slang of the Royal Air Force man, the cockpit of his plane is the ‘pulpit’ or ‘office’, the glass covering over it the ‘greenhouse’.

‘Up in the office they too knew it.’ ‘The office? You mean the flight deck?’ ‘Just that. No more. No less. The office.’

(UK military slang, dated) A plane's cockpit, particularly an observer's cockpit.


timorous

en-adj

timorous (comparative more timorous, superlative most timorous)

more timorous (comparative)
most timorous (superlative)
timerous (alternative)
timourous (alternative)

From Late Middle English timorous (“(adjective) fearful, frightened; causing fear, dreadful, terrible; deferential, modest; (noun) timid people collectively”), borrowed from Old French temoros, temorous, from Medieval Latin timōrōsus, from timōr- (the stem of Latin timor (“dread, fear”)) + -ōsus (suffix meaning ‘full of; prone to’). Timor is derived from timeō (“to be afraid of, fear”) (further origin uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *temH- (“dark”)) + -or (suffix forming third-declension masculine abstract nouns). Doublet of timoroso.

inh

(UK, dialectal)
Fired with intense feeling; passionate.

(UK, dialectal)
Hard to manage; difficult, tiresome.


Alsatian

Alsatians (plural)
alsatian (alternative)

Even the dogs here are restrained, Jesse thought, unlike the feral Alsatians back home that would sprint barking from the bottom of the garden straight through the house and smash themselves against the inside of the door until their owners appeared and locked them away.

2020, Paul Mendez, Rainbow Milk, Dialogue Books (2021), page 56:

(Australia, New Zealand, British, dated US) A German shepherd dog.

You shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars.

1822, Sir Walter Scott, chapter XVII, in The Fortunes of Nigel, Edinburgh:

(UK, obsolete) A rogue or debauchee, like those who haunted Alsatia in London.


agro

en-adj

agro (comparative more agro, superlative most agro)

more agro (comparative)
most agro (superlative)
aggro (alternative)

Trolls turns to me agro/sexy. "You're a weirdo who makes others feel weird cause you don't fit in...leave!"

2019 December, Justin Blackburn, The Bisexual Christian Suburban Failure Enlightening Bipolar Blues, page 90:

(Australia, New Zealand, British, slang) angry


dale

From Middle English dale, from Old English dæl, from Proto-West Germanic *dal, from Proto-Germanic *dalą.

And we will all the pleasures prove / That hills and valleys, dales and fields, / Woods, or steepy mountain yields

c. 1587, Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love:

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion, / Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, / Then reached the caverns measureless to man, / And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: [...]

1797, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Kubla Khan: Or A Vision in a Dream”, in Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision: The Pains of Sleep, London: […] John Murray, […], by William Bulmer and Co. […], published 1816, →OCLC, page 57:

The country about Nuncombe Putney is perhaps as pretty as any in England. It is beyond the river Teign, between that and Dartmoor, and is so lovely in all its variations of rivers, rivulets, broken ground, hills and dales, old broken, battered, time-worn timber, green knolls, rich pastures, and heathy common, that the wonder is that English lovers of scenery know so little of it.

1869 May, Anthony Trollope, “The Clock House at Nuncombe Putney”, in He Knew He Was Right, volume I, London: Strahan and Company, […], →OCLC, page 113:

Over hill, over dale / As we hit the dusty trail, / And those caissons go rolling along.

1908, Edmund Louis Gruber, The Caissons Go Rolling Along:

(chiefly British, slightly dated outside Yorkshire etc.) A valley, often in an otherwise hilly area.


kit

en-noun

kit (countable and uncountable, plural kits)

From Middle English kyt, kytt, kytte, from Middle Dutch kitte (“a wooden vessel made of hooped staves”). Related to Dutch kit (“tankard”) (see below). The further etymology is unknown. Perhaps from Proto-Germanic *kitjō-, *kut-, which would be related to the root of Dutch kot (“ramshackle house”), itself of non-Indo-European origin.
The transfer of meaning to the contents of a soldier's knapsack dates to the late 18th century, extended use of any collection of necessaries used for travelling dates to the first half of the 19th century.
The further widening of the sense to a collection of parts sold for the buyer to assemble emerges in US English in the mid 20th century.

der

A sell-out crowd of 10,000 then observed perfectly a period of silence before the team revealed their black armbands, complete with stitched-in poppies, for the match. After Fifa’s about-turn, it must have been a frantic few days for the England kit manufacturer. The on-field challenge was altogether more straightforward.

2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report”, in Telegraph:

(UK, sports) The standard set of clothing, accessories and equipment worn by players.

Get your kit off and come to bed.

The Argentina fan who risked jail by getting her kit off at the World Cup final has broken her silence by posting more topless videos.

2022 December 20, “Topless Argie fan breaks silence with more nude vids as she dodges Qatar's wrath”, in The US Sun:


try

tries (plural)
trie (alternative obsolete)

From Middle English trien (“to separate out, sift, choose, select, evaluate, try a legal case”), from Anglo-Norman trier, triher, triere (“to divide, separate, choose, select, prove, determine, try a case”), Old French trier (“to choose, pick out or separate from others, sift, cull”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Occitan triar (“to choose, sort, scrutinise, peel”), Catalan triar (“to pick, choose, decide”). Suggested to be derived from Late Latin *trītāre (“to crush, grind, trample, wear out”), itself derived from Classical Latin trītus (“rubbed, worn down, pulverised”), the past participle of terō, terere (“to rub, wear down, trample”), though this derivation is incompatible with the Occitan form. Additionally, the shift in meaning from "rub, crush, trample" to "pick out, choose, cull" is difficult to explain. One suggestion is that the semantic shift might have originated from a Latin phrase *granum terere ("to tread the corn (in threshing)"; compare Latin trītūra (“rubbing, chafing, friction" also "threshing”)), which has a parallel in the modern French trier le grain (“to sort the grain”). Alternatively, perhaps derived from Vulgar Latin *trīāre, a metathetic alteration of *tīrāre (“to tear off, pull, draw”), whence also Old French tirer (“to draw, pull, pluck, tug, peck at, extract”), Occitan tirar (“to take, draw, retrieve, remove, extract”).
Replaced native Middle English cunnen (“to try”) (from Old English cunnian), Middle English fandien (“to try, prove”) (from Old English fandian), and Middle English costnien (“to try, tempt, test”) (from Old English costnian).

gl

"to tread the corn (in threshing)"; compare Latin <i class="Latn mention" lang="la">trītūra</i> (“rubbing, chafing, friction" also "threshing”)

cog

[t̠͡ɹ̠̊˔aɪ̯]

[t̠͡ɹ̠̊˔ʷaɪ̯]

They will not passe thorough the holes of the sieve, ruddle or trie, if they be narrow.

1603, Plutarch, translated by Philemon Holland, The Philosophie, Commonlie Called, The Morals […], London: […] Arnold Hatfield, →OCLC:

(UK, dialect, obsolete) A screen, or sieve, for grain.


Beeb

Clipping of BBC; possibly popularised by Peter Sellers, who is said to have called the corporation the Beeb Beeb Ceeb on The Goon Show in the 1950s.


kit out

en-verb

kit out (third-person singular simple present kits out, present participle kitting out, simple past and past participle kitted out)

kits out (present singular third-person)
kitting out (participle present)
kitted out (participle past)
kitted out (past)

As the soccer mom-ish leader of nefarious crime cartel the Golden Circle, Poppy rules over the entire global drug trade, which she controls from a jungle lair curiously kitted out as a kitsch 50s utopia, featuring gleaming bowling alleys, diners and nail salons, but also, somewhat confusingly, robot dogs and a captive Elton John.

2017 September 19, Gwilym Mumford, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle review – spy sequel reaches new heights of skyscraping silliness”, in the Guardian:

It has been kitted out with horizon scanning and other cameras, radar, 180° thermal imaging software, and acoustic monitors.

2023 February 8, “Network News: World interest in 'Intelligent Train'”, in RAIL, number 976, page 16:

(transitive, UK) To provide with equipment.

(transitive, UK) To prepare a boat or vehicle for a voyage or journey.

(transitive, UK) To supply with or dress in a uniform, especially a sports kit.


get up

get up (third-person singular simple present gets up, present participle getting up, simple past got up, past participle (UK) got up or (US) gotten up)

gets up (present singular third-person)
getting up (participle present)
got up (past)
got up (UK participle past)
gotten up (US participle past)

He got up me about the mess I made in the kitchen.

Back in January 1989, as soon as Rod got up me that night, I knew he rated me, cared about what I did and how I performed. I felt I′d climbed a big step up the credibility ladder.

2010 July 1 [2001], Ian Healy, Hands and Heals: The Autobiography (non-fiction), →ISBN:

I said ok and resorted to only taunting or using a taunt spell to get mobs off the wizzy but the cleric got up me for that too.

2003 February 6, James Hicks, “New LoY spell info up.”, in alt.games.everquest (Usenet):

To those of you who (and there a a few) who got up me yesterday at Mt White for being a slack-arse and not replacing the rear tyre on the 'Bird, I can now state for the record that she's shod with a brand new 020.

2003 October 20, Dave Ello, “New Battlax to support the old Battle-axe...”, in aus.motorcycles (Usenet):

Alan, silver-haired and full of Aussie wit, tells me how his favourite cousin got up him recently, ‘Of course, you get yourself into these situations if you′re always trying to be the hero.’ That really annoyed him.

2011, Mark Whittaker, Brave: Ordinary Australians and their extraordinary acts of courage (non-fiction), page 205:

(UK, Australia, colloquial) To criticise.


bun

buns (plural)
bunn (alternative archaic)

From Middle English bunne (“wheat cake, bun”), from Anglo-Norman bugne (“bump on the head; fritter”), from Old French bugne (hence French beignet), from Frankish *bungjo (“little clump”), diminutive of *bungu (“lump, clump”), from Proto-Germanic *bungô, *bunkô (“clump, lump, heap, crowd”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰenǵʰ- (“thick, dense, fat”). Cognate with Dutch bonk (“clump, clot, cluster of fruits”). More at bunch.

bolletjie

a small bread roll, often sweetened or spiced

couldn't organise a bun fight in a bakery


arse

Sranan Tongo: lasi

From Middle English ars, ers, from Old English ærs, ears, from Proto-West Germanic *ars, from Proto-Germanic *arsaz (compare Dutch aars and German Arsch), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁órsos (“backside, buttocks”).

inh

could eat the arse out of a low flying duck

think the sun shines out of someone's arse

“You're an arse,” Ellen said. ¶ “Please? You must like something about me …?” ¶ “I do. You're an arse. I just told you that. I feel comfy with you, because you're such an arse.”

2007, Martin Harrison, The Judgement of Paris, page 282:

He looked at me, was just about to call me an arse, when I told him, “You throw it too hard. Try and think of the javelin hitting the target before you throw it. Let it all go through your mind first, see it, feel it, then throw it.” ¶ “Good advice, you arse,” he said and tried again.

2007, L. A. Wilson, The Silurian: Book One: The Fox and the Bear, page 103:

Felnigg. What a suppurating arse. Look at him. Arse.

2011, Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes, unnumbered page:

(chiefly UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, derogatory, slang) A stupid, pompous, arrogant, mean or despicable person.


filth

From Middle English filth, from Old English fȳlþu, from Proto-West Germanic *fūliþu, equivalent to foul + -th (abstract nominal suffix).

We were in the middle of stashing the money when the filth arrived.

(UK, Ireland, derogatory, slang) The police.


soldier

soldiers (plural)
soldior (alternative obsolete)
soldiour (alternative obsolete)
souldier (alternative obsolete)
souldior (alternative obsolete)
souldiour (alternative obsolete)

Inherited from Middle English soudeour, from Old French soudier or soudeour (“mercenary”), from Medieval Latin soldarius (“soldier (one having pay)”), from Late Latin solidus, a type of coin. Displaced Old English cempa (whence obsolete kemp).
(red herring): An allusion to soldiers' red uniforms; red herring is, reciprocally, a slang term for "soldier".

der

Beside his egg was a plate of buttered toast, already cut up into soldiers.

2008, Nicholas Drayson, A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, page 180:

(British, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand) A piece of buttered bread (or toast), cut into a long thin strip for dipping into a soft-boiled egg.


bathe

From Middle English bathen, from Old English baþian (“to bathe, wash”), from Proto-West Germanic *baþōn, from Proto-Germanic *baþōną (“to bathe”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₁- (“to warm”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian boadje (“to bathe”), Dutch baden (“to bathe”), German Low German baden (“to bathe”), German baden (“to bathe”), Danish bade (“to bathe”), Swedish bada (“to bathe”), Icelandic baða (“to bathe”). More at bath. Compare also bask.

I'm going to have a midnight bathe tonight.

I do not feel disposed to ask any questions, but devote myself entirely to the Governoress, who takes me over to the bathing-house in her boat. I have had my bathe, and am strolling along the sands, waiting for the Countess.

1885, Mrs. Forrester, “Retribution”, in Although He Was a Lord and Other Tales (Collection of British Authors, Tauchnitz Edition; volume 2327), Leipzig: [Christian] Bernhard Tauchnitz, page 140:

(British, colloquial) The act of swimming or bathing, especially in the sea, a lake, or a river; a swimming bath.


gong

This grooming of the national mindset explains the retention of 92 "hereditary peers" in the House of Lords: individuals who are gifted a right to sit in the nation's upper chamber and facilitate laws for no other reason than that their ancestor was the illegitimate child of some prince, or willing to spaff a few quid on the title when David Lloyd Gorge was selling of gongs for bribes.

2021, Otto English, Fake History, page 114:

(British, slang) A medal or award, particularly Knight Bachelor..


gong

en-verb

gong (third-person singular simple present gongs, present participle gonging, simple past and past participle gonged)

gongs (present singular third-person)
gonging (participle present)
gonged (participle past)
gonged (past)

In 1972 he was awarded the British Red Cross Silver Medal for his services to the Red Cross. In 1978 he was 'gonged' once again, this time with the Queen's Jubilee Medal, marking the 25th year of her reign.

1997, Peter Stone, The Lady and the President, page 147:

(British, slang, transitive) To give an award or medal to.


courgette

Unadapted borrowing from French courgette, diminutive of courge (“vegetable marrow, marrow squash”). Ultimately related to zucchini through the original Latin cucurbita.

ubor

意大利青瓜 (ji³ daai⁶ lei⁶ ceng¹ gwa¹, literally “Italian cucumber”)

Cucurbita pepo
Cucurbita pepo#Translingual

(British, Ireland, uncountable) A particular variety of Cucurbita pepo, a small marrow/squash.


bugger

From Middle English bougre (“heretic”), from Old French bougre, from Medieval Latin Bulgarus (“Bulgar”), from Old Church Slavonic блъгаринъ (blŭgarinŭ, “Bulgarian”), used in designation of heretics (especially the Bogomils, who arose around the 10th century AD in the First Bulgarian Empire), to whom various sexual practices such as anal sex were ascribed. Doublet of Bulgar.

der

The British Sexual Offences Act of 1967 is a buggers’ charter.

(UK law) Someone who commits buggery; a sodomite.

male homosexual and Thesaurus:fudge packer

What is that little bugger up to now?

(slang, UK, US) A whippersnapper, a tyke.


bugger

Bugger, I've missed the bus.

Dear Lord, forgive me for what I am about to, ah, say in this magnificent place of worship. Bugger. Bugger! Bugger-bugger-bugger-bugger!

1994, Richard Curtis, Four Weddings and a Funeral, spoken by Charles (Hugh Grant):

(slang, British, Ireland, Commonwealth, vulgar) An expression of annoyance or displeasure.


med

You med be religious, or you med not, but you can't help striking in your homely note with the rest.

1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1896, →OCLC:

Pronunciation spelling
pronunciation spelling

(UK, dialect) Pronunciation spelling of might.


yonks

Unknown. First seen in print around 1960. One theory is that it comes from donkey's ears; another is that it is an abbreviation of years, months and weeks.

Haven’t seen him in yonks!

I’ve been a teacher for yonks–I should really try another career.

This egg is taking yonks to boil.

I rang singer Julie Driscoll […] She said: "I haven't heard from you for yonks[…]"

1968 August 27, Christopher Ward, “The Christopher Ward Page”, in Daily Mirror, London, page 7:

Alas, the comics for that age group have nearly all picture stories today—and of course the ones for younger readers have been that way for yonks (sorry, years).

1975 January 28, Bill Stewart, “Comic Cuts”, in Evening Chronicle, number 30393, Newcastle, page 7:

It's what Miss Brunskill calls ‘our little backwater’. We're more or less fixtures there and have been for yonks.

1982, Alan Bennett, “A Woman of No Importance”, in The Complete Talking Heads, Picador, published 2010, →ISBN, page 14:

“Yonks,” he replies when I ask how long he's been stateside. “It's not like I've become American. I'm in England every year.”

2024 February 17, John Wright, quoting John Lydon, “I terrified a nation. Not bad for an 18-year-old”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 16:

(slang, UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) A long time (especially a longer time than expected); ages


chamber

From Middle English chambre, borrowed from Old French chambre, from Latin camera, from Ancient Greek καμάρα (kamára, “vaulted chamber”). Doublet of camera.

(UK) A single law office in a building housing several.


skull

skulls (plural)
scull (alternative obsolete)

From Middle English sculle, scolle (also schulle, scholle), probably from a dialectal form of Old Norse skalli (“bald head, skull”), itself probably related to Old English sċealu (“husk”). Compare Scots scull, Danish skal (“skull”) and skalle (“bald head, skull”), Norwegian skalle, Swedish skalle and especially dialectal Swedish skulle.
Alternatively, perhaps from Old Norse skoltr, skolptr (“muzzle, snout”), akin to Icelandic skoltur (“jaw”), dialectal Swedish skult, skulle (“dome, crown of the head, skull”), Middle Dutch scolle, scholle, Middle Low German scholle, schulle (“clod, sod”), and Scots skult, skolt. Compare also Old High German sciula, skiula (“skull”).

Graduates […] will never forget that majestic stature, that massive brow, that commanding look, as its possessor paced the ante-chapel of his college, or took his seat of presidence among the skulls of Golgotha.

(UK, obsolete, slang) The head or master of a college.


monster

en-verb

monster (third-person singular simple present monsters, present participle monstering, simple past and past participle monstered)

monsters (present singular third-person)
monstering (participle present)
monstered (participle past)
monstered (past)
monstre (alternative obsolete)

From Middle English monstre, from Old French monstre, mostre, moustre, from Latin mōnstrum.

Are you monstering that event?

non-player character
non-player character

(UK, live action roleplaying games) To play (a series of) non-player characters as directed, without having the responsibility of organising the game itself; generally not limited to playing literal monsters or hostile combatants.

"Get the hell out of here!" Dante monstered when Santa approached the high school carolers.

(informal, British, transitive, intransitive) To punish, reprimand or intimidate.


reed

From Middle English rede (“abomasum”), from Old English rēada, from Proto-West Germanic *raudō.

(UK, Scotland, dialect) The fourth stomach of a ruminant; rennet.


keg

keg (third-person singular simple present kegs, present participle kegging, simple past and past participle kegged)

kegs (present singular third-person)
kegging (participle present)
kegged (participle past)
kegged (past)
cag (alternative)
kag (alternative dialectal)
kager (alternative dialectal)

dated, New England, Virginia, South Carolina

From Middle English kag, from Old Norse kaggi (“keg”), likely a diminutive of Proto-Germanic *kagô (“bush, branch, stalk, stump”). Cognate with Icelandic kaggi (“keg; cask”), Norwegian kagg (“keg”), Swedish kagge (“keg”), Low German kag (“vessel; craft”), Dutch kaag (“vessel; craft”). Compare also English cag and chag.
The modern form keg with /ɛ/ is due to a dialectal raising of /a///æ/ to /ɛ/ before velars (cf. fleg); the expected form is preserved in dialectal /kæɡ/, while /keɪɡ/ reflects further raising that occurred in some dialects.

der

(UK) The pulling down of someone's trousers or kegs, oftentimes as a kind of bullying or prank.