verger

-ɜː(ɹ)dʒə(ɹ)

"We have often seen each other," said Little Dorrit, recognising the sexton, or the beadle, or the verger, or whatever he was, "when I have been at church here."

1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, “Litle Dorrit’s Party”, in Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC, book the first (Poverty), page 128:

As soon as we were all in the night the verger rolled shut the doors and blotted out the chandeliers.

1942, Emily Carr, “The Blessing”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC:

(chiefly UK, Ireland, Christianity) A lay person who takes care of the interior of a church and acts as an attendant during services, where he or she carries the verge (or virge). In the United States, the office is generally combined with that of sexton.

(chiefly UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, Christianity) An usher; also, in major ecclesiastical landmarks, a tour guide.

When she came to her place she opened the book, and perused it, and saw the pictures, but frowned and blushed; and then shut it, (of which several took notice,) and calling the verger, bade him bring her the old book, wherein she was formerly wont to read.

1725, John Strype, Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion, and Other Various Occurrences in the Church of England, during Queen Elizabeth’s Happy Reign, Oxford: Clarendon, published 1824, Vol. I, Part I, Chapter 23, p. 408:

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) An attendant upon a dignitary, such as a bishop or dean, a justice, etc.


balaclava

Balaklava
Battle of Balaclava
Crimean War

From the city of Balaklava in Crimea, from Ottoman Turkish بالقلاوه (modern Turkish balıklava), alteration of بالقلاغه (balıklaga, “fishing ground”). During the Crimean War the British troops suffered from cold due to improper clothing. When the news spread in the home front after the Battle of Balaclava in 1854, the people began knitting warm clothing for the soldiers, including woollen caps to be worn under the helmet, which were named balaclavas by the troops.

George Ronald Waite, 33, known as Balaclava Bill because of the dark blue woollen hood he wore while robbing seven banks of $46,200 over the past two years, was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in Kingston Penitentiary.

1969 January 10, “Robbed seven banks, Balaclava Bill given 15-year term in jail”, in Globe and Mail, Toronto, page 1:

(chiefly UK, Canada) A ski mask with holes for the eyes and, sometimes, the nose and mouth, which may be rolled up and worn like a toque or pulled over the face for greater protection.


trot

en-verb

trot (third-person singular simple present trots, present participle trotting, simple past and past participle trotted)

trots (present singular third-person)
trotting (participle present)
trotted (participle past)
trotted (past)

From Middle English trotten, from Old French trotter, troter (“to go, trot”), from Medieval Latin *trottō, *trotō (“to go”), from Frankish *trottōn (“to go, run”), from Proto-Germanic *trudōną, *trudaną, *tradjaną (“to go, step, tread”), from Proto-Indo-European *dreh₂- (“to run, escape”). Cognate with Old High German trottōn (“to run”), Modern German trotten (“to trot, plod”), Gothic 𐍄𐍂𐌿𐌳𐌰𐌽 (trudan, “to tread”), Old Norse troða (“to walk, tread”), Old English tredan (“to step, tread”). Doublet of tread.

der

A particular friend of mine complained that I had "trotted" him at a sale, but he did not see what was happening on the part of the other bidder.

1927, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, The Parliamentary Debates (Official Report), page 2221:

(UK, slang, archaic, transitive) To bid against (a person) at an auction, so as to raise the price of the goods.


guillotine

Borrowed from French guillotine, named after the French physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738–1814), who proposed its use for capital punishment.

named-after

/ˌɡɪləˈtiːn/

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

The right hon. Gentleman is making a great stooshie about time in relation to this Bill, but was it not the case that, when the SNP [Scottish National Party] Scottish Government introduced their continuity Bill in the Scottish Parliament, they operated a ruthless guillotine to prevent proper scrutiny of it? That is the case; they ran a guillotine on that Bill, and there was a very limited amount of time allowed for debate and scrutiny, yet he complains about that happening here.

2019 October 22, Stephen Kerr, Member of Parliament for Stirling, “Second Reading of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill”, in House of Commons Debates (House of Commons)^(https://web.archive.org/web/20191024000813/https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-10-22/debates/277C5A20-456D-469B-A415-D04AFFD83248/EuropeanUnion(WithdrawalAgreement)Bill), volume 666, archived from the original on 2019-10-24, column 860:

(British) A parliamentary procedure for fixing the dates when various stages of discussion of a bill must end, to ensure that the enactment of the bill proceeds expeditiously.


guillotine

en-verb

guillotine (third-person singular simple present guillotines, present participle guillotining, simple past and past participle guillotined)

guillotines (present singular third-person)
guillotining (participle present)
guillotined (participle past)
guillotined (past)

Borrowed from French guillotiner (“to execute with a guillotine, to guillotine”), from guillotine (see etymology 1) + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs).

bor

/ˌɡɪləˈtiːn/

(British) To end discussion (about a parliamentary bill or part of one) by invoking a guillotine procedure.


north-east

en-noun

north-east (usually uncountable, plural north-easts)

(chiefly UK) Alternative form of northeast.


north-east

en-adj

north-east (not generally comparable, comparative more north-east, superlative most north-east)

more north-east (comparative)
most north-east (superlative)

Coal is found in several places along the Hun-chiang on the north-east of Tʻung-hua.

1913, Kinosuke Inouye, “The Coal Resources of Manchuria”, in The Coal Resources of the World, volume 1, Morang & Co. Limited, →OCLC, page 256:

Gervasius and Borodijin rode on to reconnoitre. As my caravan entered the strip of pasture fringing the shore I saw my people in conversation with Sarts by a yurt at the north-east corner of the lake. They soon returned with the information that the whole neighbourhood, which included Kala Otlak and Bulag Bashi, was known as Dakherukta. There was no tura, but two or three miles off to the west there lived a wealthy Sart who was at the moment away from home attending a wedding at some friends of his. The festivities were taking place on the farther side of the northern mountains.

1939, Wilhelm Filchner, “Issik Pakhta—The Sarts—Good-bye to Borodijin”, in E. O. Lorimer, transl., A Scientist in Tartary: from the Hoang-ho to the Indus, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC, pages 211–212:

The French Concession lay between the walled Chinese city and Yang-ching-pang Creek, later filled in and called Edward VII Avenue. The British Settlement stretched from Yang-ching-pang to Soochow Creek while the American settlement consisted of a piece of land fronting the river to the north-east of Soochow Creek.

1990, Harriet Sergeant, “A Simple Equation – The Rise of a Great City”, in Shanghai: Collision Point of Cultures, 1918-1939, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 18:


north-west

en-noun

north-west (usually uncountable, plural north-wests)

(chiefly UK) Alternative form of northwest.


north-west

en-adj

north-west (not generally comparable, comparative more north-west, superlative most north-west)

more north-west (comparative)
most north-west (superlative)


nutcase

nutcases (plural)
nut-case (alternative)

From nut + case. Compare headcase, mental case etc.

(UK, Ireland, often humorous) An eccentric or odd person.


widdle

en-noun

widdle (countable and uncountable, plural widdles)

(childish, chiefly UK) An act of urination.


widdle

en-verb

widdle (third-person singular simple present widdles, present participle widdling, simple past and past participle widdled)

widdles (present singular third-person)
widdling (participle present)
widdled (participle past)
widdled (past)


jobsworth

/ˈd͡ʒɒbzwɜːθ/

/ˈd͡ʒɑbzˌwɝθ/

A compound of job + -s- + worth, derived from the phrase “It’s more than me job’s worth” or “... my job’s worth” as used in denial of a request by a functionary, chiefly popularized by Jeremy Taylor's 1973 song “Jobsworth” and the 1973–1994 BBC television series That’s Life! which focused on consumer affairs and gave a “Jobsworth of the Week” award to “a startling tale of going by the book”.

The usual council jobsworths came down to tell them to stop playing football.

For many people, however, the stress of not having the correct ticket for a train or bus journey can lead to a particularly uncomfortable feeling … fear that they might encounter a jobsworth. […] Someone who has been caught out by a jobsworth, will probably accuse them of being an embittered, mean-spirited inadequate who are using their status to give themselves faux importance, justifying their actions by their twin mantras of "Rules is rules" and, inevitably, "It's more than my job's worth."

2000 January 10, “Your job’s worth more than you are”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 2020-02-15:

Everyone knows a jobsworth. They are in our offices: the keeper of the stationery cupboard and the grumpy security guard. They add crucial extra minutes to the daily commute: the traffic warden who stands waiting for the time to tick over, the bus driver who drives past as you sprint for the bus stop.

2007 July 16, Matt Keating, “Hug a jobsworth and spread a little happiness”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2014-10-05:

But as within the rest of the civil service, competent, bright and ambitious staff who work long hours and often juggle multiple roles co-exist with the old-school jobsworths who punch-out the instant their daily seven hours 12 minutes are up.

2014 April 16, “anonymous civil servant”, “The old-school jobsworths in the civil service are still not pulling their weight”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2015-10-21:

(chiefly British, derogatory, informal) A person who upholds trivial rules unnecessarily and obstructively in order to exercise their (typically minor) authority.

小官僚

minor official or worker who refuses to be flexible in the application of rules to help a client or customer


package holiday

en-noun

package holiday (plural package holidays)

(chiefly UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) A holiday that consists of transport and accommodation advertised and sold together by a vendor known as a tour operator.


zero-rated

(chiefly British) Subject to no value-added tax when sold (but in which the supplier can still recover VAT attributable to it).


juniper

juniper (countable and uncountable, plural junipers)

[ˈd͡ʒunɪ̈pɚ]

From Late Middle English junyper, juniperus, from Latin iūniperus (“juniper-tree”).

[…] I said you didn't like them ere strong liquors, but if he warn't particular, I was sure you would pledge him in a glass of juniper, for I had always made you, since we had been man and vife^([sic]), take a drop afore you went to market, to keep cold out.

1834, Young Hearts: A Novel by a Recluse. With a Preface by Miss Jane Porter, page 106:


visitor

visitors (plural)
visitour (alternative)
visiter (alternative)

Partly from Middle English visiter, visitere, equivalent to visit + -er; and partly from Middle English visitour, from Anglo-Norman visitour, from Old French visetëor. By surface analysis, visit + -or.

(British) A head or overseer of an institution such as a college (in which case, equivalent to the university's chancellor) or cathedral or hospital, who resolves disputes, gives ceremonial speeches, etc.


get in

- You gained full marks in the exam.
- Get in!

(UK, slang) An exclamation of joy at one's success.


electoral register

electoral register (plural electoral registers)

(British) A list of all those people who are registered to vote in a particular locality


gamp

After Mrs Sarah Gamp, a character who carried a large umbrella in Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit.

It was the last day of the match, and owing to rain it was really unfit to play, but the promoters insisted upon our doing so, to satisfy the spectators, who stood round the ground with their umbrellas up. […] One gentleman sat with his gamp up on some rails near the railway.

1900, A. W. Pullin, Talks with old English cricketers, page 169:

And it was early morning, and the world was moist, when the crystal-gazer's husband, a freak in knickerbockers with an open coppish and a sabbath gamp, came over the stones outside his house to meet the holy travellers.

a. 1954 (date written), Dylan Thomas, “The Holy Six”, in Adventures in the Skin Trade (A New Directions Paperbook; no. 183), New York, N.Y.: New Directions Publishing Corporation, published 1969, →ISBN, page 129:

In his hand he waved – an appropriate symbol of disapprobation – his London gamp meticulously rolled.

1983, Lawrence Durrell, Sebastian (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 1111:


chavette

So, whenever a big game is being shown on telly the streets and shopping centres will become chav-free zones. (You might spot a few straggling chavettes around who haven't quite realized that the way to attract a chav bloke is to feign an interest in the beautiful game.)

2004, Mia Wallace, Clint Spanner, Chav!: A User's Guide to Britain's New Ruling Class:

(British, derogatory, slang) A female chav.


antisocial behaviour order

antisocial behaviour order (plural antisocial behaviour orders)

(British, law) A civil order made against a person, as a result of persistent antisocial behaviour.


as well

aswell (alternative)
aswel (alternative)

―Would you though? ―I would as well.

―She looks so much like her mum, don't you think? ―Oh my god, she does as well!

―Good morning Mr Brown! ―Good morning! I see you've got little Molly [pet dog] out for a stroll as well!

(UK, colloquial) An intensifier. Actually; really.


provision

provision (countable and uncountable, plural provisions)

/pɹəˈvɪʒ.ən/

From Middle English provisioun, from Old French provisïon, from Latin prōvīsiō (“preparation, foresight”), from prōvidēre (“provide”).

der

a papal provision

1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:

(British, historical) A nomination by the pope to a benefice before it became vacant, depriving the patron of his right of presentation.


bedding

en-noun

bedding (countable and uncountable, plural beddings)

From Middle English bedding, beddyng, from Old English bedding (“bedding”), equivalent to bed + -ing.

(British) The textiles associated with the bed, as well as the mattress, bedframe, or bed base (such as box spring).


eff and blind

en-verb

eff and blind (third-person singular simple present effs and blinds, present participle effing and blinding, simple past and past participle effed and blinded)

effs and blinds (present singular third-person)
effing and blinding (participle present)
effed and blinded (participle past)
effed and blinded (past)

From eff and blimey (for "God blind me").

I can't stand the way he's always effing and blinding.

(British, slang) To swear; to use swear words.


prefect

prefects (plural)
præfect (alternative)
praefect (alternative)

From Middle English prefect and prefecte, from Old French prefect (Mod. French préfet), from Latin praefectus (“one placed in charge, overseer, director, prefect”), from praeficere (“to place in charge”).

der

(British) A school pupil in a position of power over other pupils.

風紀 /风纪

a school pupil in a position of power over other pupils


doddle

Uncertain. Possibly from dialectal English doddle (“to toddle; sway; nod drowsily”).

Centurion: Have you ever seen anyone crucified? / Matthias: Crucifixion's a doddle.

Retailing in Europe's biggest economy, with 82m mostly well-off people, may sound a doddle. It is not.

2002 September 14, “KarstadtQuelle: Below par”, in The Economist:

He was a QC from Edinburgh, wearing the black jacket and pinstripe trousers of his trade, as if straight from court, and probably persuaded to come in the belief that if you could interest the Budhill and Springboig party in the repressive Gaullist policies in Algeria then becoming Solicitor-General was a dawdle.

2009, Archie Macpherson, “Thumping the Tub”, in A Game of Two Halves: The Autobiography, Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing, →ISBN, page 63:

(UK, Ireland, informal) A job, task, or other activity that is easy to complete or simple.


jumper

→ Bengali: জাম্পার (jampar)

→ Dutch: jumper

→ Estonian: džemper

→ Finnish: jumpperi

→ Georgian: ჯემპრი (ǯemṗri)

→ German: Jumper

→ Hungarian: dzsömper

→ Japanese: ジャンパー (janpā)

→ Macedonian: џемпер (džemper)

→ Maltese: ġamper

→ Portuguese: jumper

desctree

→ Russian: джемпер (džemper)
→ Kazakh: жемпір (jempır)
→ Kyrgyz: жемпир (jempir)

→ Serbo-Croatian:

Cyrillic script: џемпер

Latin script: džemper

→ Spanish: chompa, chomba

→ Welsh: siwmper

From the term jump (“short coat”) + -er, originally in sailors' jargon, ultimately of uncertain origin. Jump is possibly from Scottish English jupe (“man's loose jacket or tunic”), from Middle English juype, gype, joupe, from Old French jupe, juppe, from Arabic جُبَّة (jubba); see also jibba. Cognate with Middle Low German jōpe, gōpe (“waistcoat, jacket”), German Joppe (“jacket”). Alternatively, perhaps derived from jump.

The hideous holiday jumper became a big trend in the 1980s, influenced as we were by the TV-am gang, Gordon the Gopher and memories of Andy Williams singing to girls as they walked by on his Christmas specials. (Can't blame 'em, given he was wearing one of his knitted monstrosities.)

2012 December 16, Robert Epstein, “Bring Modern: Christmas jumpers”, in The Independent:

(chiefly British, Australia, New Zealand) A woollen sweater or pullover.


trunks

(UK) Men’s or boys’ boxer shorts or boxer briefs.


shelve

en-verb

shelve (third-person singular simple present shelves, present participle shelving, simple past and past participle shelved)

shelves (present singular third-person)
shelving (participle present)
shelved (participle past)
shelved (past)
shelve (infinitive)
shelve (first-person present singular)
shelved (first-person past singular)
shelve (present second-person singular)
shelvest (archaic present second-person singular)
shelved (past second-person singular)
shelvedst (archaic past second-person singular)
shelves (present singular third-person)
shelveth (archaic present singular third-person)
shelved (past singular third-person)
shelve (plural present)
shelved (past plural)
shelve (present subjunctive)
shelved (past subjunctive)
shelve (imperative present)
shelving (participle present)
shelved (participle past)

From Late Middle English shelven (“to separate (someone or something) from another thing, keep away”); further etymology uncertain, possibly:
* from shelf, shelfe (“shelf; cabinet, cupboard; grassy bank”) (though this is doubted by the Oxford English Dictionary); or
* related to West Frisian skelf (“not level or straight, oblique”).

cog

(transitive, British, dialectal) To tilt or tip (a cart) to discharge its contents.


jock

Unknown. Suggested to be a hypocoristic for John (compare Jack).

(British, Ireland, slang, derogatory) A Scotsman.


recess

en-noun

recess (countable and uncountable, plural recesses)

The noun is borrowed from Latin recessus (“act of going back, departure, receding, retiring; (figuratively) retreat, withdrawal; (metonymically) distant, secluded, or secret spot, corner, nook, retreat; recessed part, indentation”) (also Late Latin recessus (“decree or resolution of the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire”)), from recēdō (“to go back, recede, retire, withdraw; to go away, depart; (by extension) to disappear, vanish; to separate; to stand back, be distant; to yield”) (from re- (prefix meaning ‘back, backwards’) + cēdō (“to go, move, proceed”)) + -tus (suffix forming action nouns from verbs); influenced by Middle French recès, French recès (“a break, pause; break between classes in school; school vacation; ebbing of tide; reduction”) (also Anglo-Norman recès and Old French recès (“hiding place; hollow”).
Sense 5 (“decree or resolution of the diet of the Holy Roman Empire, etc.”) is possibly influenced by Italian recesso and refers to a decree or resolution made just before a meeting ends.
The adjective and verb are derived from the noun.
Cognates
* Catalan recés
* Italian recesso
* Middle French recès (modern French recès)
* Portuguese recesso
* Spanish receso

дебри

hidden, innermost, or inaccessible place or part of a place

فُسْحة

temporary stoppage of an activity — see also break, pause

Students who do not listen in class will not play outside during recess.

(countable) A temporary stoppage of an activity; a break, a pause.

(Australia, British, Canada, US, Philippines, education) A time away from studying during the school day for a meal or recreation.


football player

en-noun

football player (plural football players)

football players (plural)
football-player (alternative rare)

association football
association football

(soccer, UK) One who plays association football, aka soccer.


pike

From Middle English pyke, pyk, pik, pike (“pike; sharp point, iron tip of a staff or spear, pointed toe of an item of footwear; sharp tool; mountain, peak”), from Old English pīc (“pointed object, pick axe”), and Middle French pique (“long thrusting weapon”), from Old French pic (“sharp point, spike”); both ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *pīk, from Proto-Germanic *pīkaz, *pīkō (“sharp point, pike, peak”), related to pick with a narrower meaning.
The word is cognate with Middle Dutch pecke, peke, picke (modern Dutch piek), German Pike, Norwegian pik, Danish pig, and possibly Old Irish pīk. It is a doublet of pique.
The diving or gymnastics position is probably from tapered appearance of the body when the position is executed.
The carnivorous freshwater fish is probably derived from the “sharp point, spike” senses, due to the fish’s pointed jaws.
The verb sense “to quit or back out of a promise” may be from the sense of taking up pilgrim's staff or pike and leaving on a pilgrimage; and compare Middle English pī̆ken (“to go, remove oneself”) and Old Danish pikke af (“to go away”).

cog

Short rakes for to gather vp barlie to binde, / and greater to rake vp such leauings behinde: / A rake for to hale vp the fitchis that lie, / A pike for to pike them vp handsom to drie.

1878, Thomas Tusser, “A Digression to Husbandlie Furniture”, in Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. […], London: Published for the English Dialect Society by Trübner & Co., […], →OCLC; republished as W[illiam] Payne, Sidney J[ohn Hervon] Herrtage, editors, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. […], London: Published for the English Dialect Society by Trübner & Co., […], 1878, →OCLC, stanza 15, page 37:

(obsolete, British, dialectal) A hayfork.


pike

en-verb

pike (third-person singular simple present pikes, present participle piking, simple past and past participle piked)

pikes (present singular third-person)
piking (participle present)
piked (participle past)
piked (past)

Clipping of turnpike (“a toll road, especially a toll expressway; a spiked barrier across a road, originally used to block access to the road until toll had been paid”)
Noun sense 2 (“gypsy, itinerant tramp, or traveller”) and verb sense 2 (“to depart, travel, especially to flee, run away”) may refer to someone frequently using turnpikes, or may be derived from Middle English pī̆ken (“to go, remove oneself”).

clipping

Joe sold his sand, and cly'd his cole, sir [marginal note: pocketed his money] / While Bess got a basket of rags, / Then up to St. Giles's they roll'd, sir, / To every bunter Bess brags: / Into a booze-ken they pike it, [marginal note: go] / Where Bess was admitted we hear; / For none of the coves dare but like it, / As Joey, here kiddy, was there.

a. 1789, G[eorge] Parker (?), collected and annotated by John S[tephen] Farmer, “The Sandman’s Wedding”, in Musa Pedestris. Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes [1536–1896], [s.l.]: Privately published for subscribers only, published 1896, →OCLC, page 65:

Crash the cull—down with him—down with him before he dubs the jigger. Tip him the degan, Fib, fake him through and through; if he pikes we shall all be scragged. [footnote: Kill the fellow, down with him before he opens the door. Stab him, through and through; if he gets off we shall all be hanged.]

1828, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, chapter LXXXIII, in Pelham or Adventures of a Gentleman, New York, N.Y.: The Cassell Publishing Co. […], →OCLC, page 402:

Two hoodlums were "piking" up Woodward Avenue yesterday, when they encountered a boy acquaintance who asked where they were going.

1875 May, “Facts and Fancies”, in Ballou’s Monthly Magazine, volume XLI, number 5 (number 245 overall), Boston, Mass.: Thomes & Talbot, publishers […], →OCLC, page 496, column 2:

"Here, hold Bismarck!" says Aunty, jammin' the brass cage into Mr. Mallory's arm, and with that she pikes straight over to us.

1912, Sewell Ford, “A Long Shot on DeLancey”, in Odd Numbers: Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, publishers, →OCLC, page 77:

(intransitive, obsolete, British, thieves' cant) To depart or travel (as if by a turnpike), especially to flee, to run away.


cluck

en-verb

cluck (third-person singular simple present clucks, present participle clucking, simple past and past participle clucked)

clucks (present singular third-person)
clucking (participle present)
clucked (participle past)
clucked (past)
clutch (alternative dialectal)
clock (alternative)

From Middle English clokken, clocken, from Old English cloccian (“to cluck, make a noise”), from Proto-West Germanic *klukkwōn, from Proto-Germanic *klukkwōną (“to make a sound, cluck”), of imitative origin.
Cognate with Scots clok, clock (“to cluck”), Dutch klokken (“to cluck”), Low German klucken (“to cluck”), German glucken (“to cluck”), Danish klukke (“to cluck”), Swedish klucka (“to cluck”), Icelandic klökkva (“to sob, whine, cluck”).

cog

(British, drug slang) To suffer withdrawal from heroin.


punnet

Uncertain. First appears in the 1820s. Perhaps a diminutive of pun, a dialect variant of pound, the weight + -et. The suggestion that it is an eponym of Reginald Crundall Punnett (1875–1967), geneticist and grower of strawberries, is not chronologically possible. The suggestion it was an ancestor of his lacks evidence.

Thus, according to the same Year-Book, a sea-kale punnet measures 8 in. in diameter at the top and 7½ in. at the bottom, being 2 in. deep, while a radish punnet is 8 in. in diameter and 1 in. deep, if to hold six “hands,” or 9 in. by 1 in. for twelve “hands.” A mushroom punnet is 7 in. by 1 in., while a salading punnet is 5 in. by 2 in.

1904, Arthur George Liddon Rogers, The Business Side of Agriculture, 2010, Forgotten Books, page 85

Another type of splint basket, called a punnet, was used in the strawberry trade of New York City between 1815 and 1850.[…]Punnets and pottles found little favor except in the vicinity of Boston and New York and were soon discarded for more convenient and less expensive packages.

1917, Stevenson Whitcomb Fletcher, The Strawberry in North America: History, Origin, Botany, and Breeding, pages 77–78:

Most of the fruit for market is picked and sold in punnets, but for jam making buckets are used, similar to the raspberry bucket.

1933, South Australian Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Journal of Agriculture, South Australia, Volume 36, page 1292

Early this season, Ross Lill got together with a plastics firm to produce a flat tray to replace the commonly used punnet.

1982, New Zealand Department of Agriculture, New Zealand journal of agriculture, page 13

However we recommend, particularly in cooler climates, sowing tomato seeds into a seed tray or punnet and allowing the seedlings to grow before they are transplanted into the garden.

2005, Don Burke, The Complete Burke's Backyard: The Ultimate Book of Fact Sheets, page 408:

‘But rather than spend £5 on a small punnet of exotic berries, a family would be better off buying regular and larger quantities of fresh fruit and vegetables from their local market.[…]’

2007 May 13, Amelia Hill, “Forget superfoods, you can′t beat an apple a day”, in The Guardian:

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) A small basket or receptacle for collecting and selling fruit, particularly strawberries.


fœtus

en-noun

fœtus (plural fœtuses or fœtus or (hypercorrect) fœti)

fœtuses (plural)
fœtus (plural)
fœti (hypercorrect plural)

The progress of the fœtus appears to be much quicker in the early than latter months: but the proportional increase is attended with difficulty in the calculation; for this, among other reasons, that we have not an opportunity of knowing the magnitude or weight of the same fœtus in different months.

1784, Charles Elliot, A system of anatomy: from Monro, Winslow, Innes, and the latest authers:

The umbilical vein arises from the collected branches of the placenta, and enters the fœtus at the navel, it runs inclosed within a thick sheath, which afterwards forms the lower part of the suspensory ligament, to the horizontal fissure, where it gives off some branches on either side of the substance of the liver;

1800, Richard Powell, Observations on the bile and its diseases,and on the oeconomy of the liver:

Where the death of the fœtus has been induced with criminal intent, it may be due to puctured woulds of the fontanelles, orbits, heart, or spinal marrow; dislocation of the neck; separation of the head from the body; ffracture of the bones of the head and face; strangulation; suffocation; drowning in the closet pan or privy, or from being thrown into water.

1949, William George Aitchison Robertson, Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, →ISBN, page 54:

(UK, rare) Alternative spelling of foetus.


smirt

en-verb

smirt (third-person singular simple present smirts, present participle smirting, simple past and past participle smirted)

smirts (present singular third-person)
smirting (participle present)
smirted (participle past)
smirted (past)

Blend of smoke + flirt. Apparently coined in Ireland following the ban on smoking in pubs.

Smirting - a cross between smoking and flirting - is already a huge hit in Dublin where the ban has been in place for two years

2006 March 25, “BURNING PASSION IN CIGGIE SHELTERS”, in The Scottish Daily Record:

I have dated three guys that I smirted with, and one of them is now my current boyfriend.

2007 July 2, Clover Stroud, “Smoke signals: new dating paths?”, in Daily Mail:

Smirting is believed to have started in Temple Bar, Dublin, in 2004

2008 July 1, “Unintended consequences of the smoking ban”, in BBC NEWS:

As a result, despite the ban, the smoking rate in Ireland has been stuck at around 28% and the expected decline in cigarette consumption never materialized. A new social practice quickly emerged called “smirting”, where young Dubliners smoke and flirt with members of the opposite sex

2012, GN Connolly, “How Society Treats Smoking”, in Israel Journal of Health Policy Research:

(intransitive, UK, Ireland) To chat up or flirt with (someone) while smoking outside a pub.


razz

razz (third-person singular simple present razzes, present participle razzing, simple past and past participle razzed)

razzes (present singular third-person)
razzing (participle present)
razzed (participle past)
razzed (past)

Consider, for example, the word razz, used by younger speakers with the meaning 'riding around with friends in a car (or a snowmobile), with no particular goal'. This meaning is not generally familiar to older residents of the province, and is largely unknown in North America. A very similar meaning does, however, occur in Britain and Australia, as in the following British online posting: 81. We find about an exciting new craze that is seeing kids clad in leather from Leamington razzing around on motorbikes. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/coventry/features/motor/mini-moto-crazy.shtml).

2010, Sandra Clarke, Newfoundland and Labrador English, page 151:

(informal, Newfoundland, Labrador, British, Australia) To drive a vehicle around aimlessly.


Jaffa cake

(chiefly British) A small, biscuit-like cake with a base of firm sponge, a layer of orange jelly, and a chocolate covering.


swingometer

/swɪŋˈɒmɪtə/

/swɪŋˈɑmɪtɚ/

(British) A graphic device used to illustrate swing in an election.


prang

en-noun

prang (countable and uncountable, plural prangs)

Originally World War II Royal Air Force slang; probably imitative.

onomatopoeic

imitative

The typical prang cost a few hundred dollars in panelbeating charges.

1984, Ian Manning, Beyond walking distance: The Gains from Speed in Australian Urban Travel, page 105:

If people drove like that in Australia there would be constant prangs.

1999, Lydia Laube, Bound for Vietnam, page 209:

The drive host, Mark Day, recalls the sinking feeling as he covered an accident on the Tullamarine expressway and wondered what commuters in Sydney would think about hearing all the details of the prang.

2009, Bridget Griffen-Foley, Changing Stations: The Story of Australian Commercial Radio, page 90:

(chiefly UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, informal) An accident involving a motor vehicle, typically minor and without casualties.


prang

en-verb

prang (third-person singular simple present prangs, present participle pranging, simple past and past participle pranged)

prangs (present singular third-person)
pranging (participle present)
pranged (participle past)
pranged (past)

onomatopoeic

imitative

“Didn′t bump nobody,” I sneer.
“That′s because you were careful,” says the wife. “Your forecast doesn′t say you will prang. It merely says ‘exercise care today,’ which you did.”

(intransitive, chiefly Australia and New Zealand, UK, informal) To crash; to have an accident while controlling a vehicle.

Soon after rescuing some silly children from the local caves, the alien prangs his vessel and dies.

2004, John Pym, editor, Time Out Film Guide, page 70:

On Friday, I picked up our camper van, upgraded to a four sleeper so Elysee and I could each find a neutral corner, which I managed to “prang,” navigating the parking lot, within one hour of signing away my house as security.

2005, Thomas Marshall, Our Summer in Australia And New Zealand, page 93:

(transitive, chiefly Australia and New Zealand, UK, informal) To damage (the vehicle one is driving) in an accident; to have a minor collision with (another motor vehicle).


WPC

woman police constable
woman police constable#English

(UK, law enforcement, historical) Initialism of woman police constable, a former police rank.


wigging

en-noun

wigging (countable and uncountable, plural wiggings)

His Colonel talked to him severely when the cold weather ended. That made him more wretched than ever; and it was only an ordinary ‘Colonel's wigging’!

1888, Rudyard Kipling, “Thrown Away”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Folio Society, published 2005, page 18:

(countable, British, Ireland, colloquial, dated) A telling-off or reprimand.


fire brigade

/ˈfaɪə(ɹ)bɹɪˌɡeɪd/

(firefighting, UK, Ireland) An organization, often part of a local government, whose purpose is preventing and putting out fires.

skuadër zjarrfikëse

organization for preventing and putting out fires

foyerwer

borrowed from German, Malmedy region, old


See the Wikipedia article ISO 216, the international standard on paper sizes.

(UK, rail transport) A3 class, a class of steam locomotive used on the London and North Eastern Railway.


marginal

en-adj

marginal (not generally comparable, comparative more marginal, superlative most marginal)

more marginal (comparative)
most marginal (superlative)

Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin marginālis, equivalent to margin + -al.

լուսանցքային

of, relating to, or located at a margin or an edge

vaa’ankieli-

where the winning margin was a small proportion of the total number of votes

In Bristol West, Labour had a majority of only 1,000, so the seat is considered highly marginal this time around.

In ‘battleground’ seats with the Conservatives, Liberal Democrat vote shares increased most in the most marginal seats.

2002, Andrew Geddes, Jonathan Tonge, Labour′s Second Landslide: The British General Election 2001, page 79:

In Outer London, Harrow East is now a more marginal Labour hold than Harrow West.

2007, Robert Waller, Byron Criddle, The Almanac of British Politics, page 58:

The pendulum lists the seats from least marginal to most marginal for the government on one side, and least marginal to most marginal for the opposition on the other side.

2010, Nick Economou, Zareh Ghazarian, Australian Politics For Dummies, unnumbered page:

He justified his comment by noting that the Labour Party had quickly committed to delivering a high-speed Leeds-Manchester line, and argued that pressure would grow on the Government because there were several marginal parliamentary seats around Leeds and Bradford.

2021 December 1, “Network News: Integrated Rail Plan: Osborne predicts HS2 eastern leg will return”, in RAIL, number 945, page 8:

(comparable) Determined by a small margin; having a salient characteristic determined by a small margin.

(politics, chiefly UK, Australia, New Zealand, of a constituency) Subject to a change in sitting member with only a small change in voting behaviour, this usually being inferred from the small winning margin of the previous election.


parliamentary

The train was moving less fast through the summer night. The swift express had changed into something almost a parliamentary, had stopped three times since Norwich, and now, at long last, was approaching Banton.

1931, Francis Beeding, “1/1”, in Death Walks in Eastrepps:

(British, historical, railways) Of a class of train which, by an act of parliament, ran both ways along a line, at least once each day, at the rate of one penny per mile.


parliamentary

parliamentaries (plural)
Parliamentary (alternative)


blimming

I don't want to buy any blimming brushes, so kindly go away!

(UK, slang) Blooming (as an intensifier).


graduand

/ˈɡɹæd͡ʒuːˌænd/

Attested since 1882. From Medieval Latin graduandus, gerundive of graduō (“to graduate”).

2005, Mike Amos, Proud Return of the Pigeon Boy, Northern Echo (Darlington, UK); Jul 14, 2005.
In order to add jollity to the proceedings, said the dean, each graduand would find beneath his seat a little tub of bubbles, complete with mortar board cap.

(British, Canada, Commonwealth) A student who has completed the requirements for, but has not yet been awarded, a particular degree.


garage

en-noun

garage (countable and uncountable, plural garages)

→ Assamese: গেৰেজ (gerez)

→ Bengali: গ্যারেজ (gêrej)

→ Hindi: गेराज (gerāj)

→ Irish: garáiste

→ Japanese: ガレージ, グラージ

→ Malay: garaj

→ Scottish Gaelic: garaids

→ Sinhalese: ගරාජ් (garāj)

→ Urdu: گیراج (gerāj)

/ˈɡæ.ɹɑː(d)ʒ/

Borrowed from French garage (“keeping under cover, protection, shelter”), derivative of French garer (“to keep under cover, dock, shunt, guard, keep”), from Middle French garer, garrer, guerrer; partly from Old French garir, warir (from Old Frankish *warjan); and partly from Old French varer (“to fight, defend oneself, protect”), from Old Norse varask (“to defend oneself”), reflexive of vara (“to ware, watch out, defend”); both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *warjaną (“to defend, ward off”), *warōną (“to watch, protect”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to close, cover, protect, save, defend”).

der

(British, music) A type of electronic dance music related to house music, with warped and time-stretched sounds; UK garage.


lad culture

This is frequently traced back to the birth of lad culture in the mid-90s, which itself tends now to be characterised as a reaction against “feminism gone too far”.

2023 September 18, Zoe Williams, “The nasty noughties: Russell Brand and the era of sadistic tabloid misogyny”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(UK) A subculture which arose in the United Kingdom in the 1990s, centered around traditional working-class male attitudes and interests, often in rejection of the perceived strictures of feminism or the concept of the New Man.


benjamin

something which is not long enough to constitute a benjamin, and too long for a dress coat or spencer

1826, The Atheneum, volume 18, page 236:

How the young man from Cambridge sulkily put his five great-coats in front; but was reconciled when little Miss Sharp was made to quit the carriage, and mount up beside him—when he covered her up in one of his Benjamins, and became perfectly good-humoured—

1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

(UK, slang, dated) A kind of upper coat for men.


fitting

en-noun

fitting (countable and uncountable, plural fittings)

fittings (plural)
fittin' (alternative)
fittin (alternative)

the fittings of a church or study

(chiefly British, often plural) A removable item in a house or other building, which can be taken with one when one moves out, such as a moveable piece of furniture, a carpet, picture, etc.; US furnishing; compare fixture.


DCL

DCL (countable and uncountable, plural DCLs)

Doctor of Civil Law
w:Doctor of Civil Law

(British, education) Initialism of Doctor of Civil Law.


doctor's orders

A laxative pill, "number 9", once issued in the British army


fuck off

en-verb

fuck off (third-person singular simple present fucks off, present participle fucking off, simple past and past participle fucked off)

fucks off (present singular third-person)
fucking off (participle present)
fucked off (participle past)
fucked off (past)

It really fucks me off when you do that.

(transitive, idiomatic, UK, Ireland, Commonwealth)

srát

to annoy, irritate — see also annoy, irritate

I'm bored. Shall we just fuck this off and go home?

[…] we force ourselves to have jobs and maintain apartments and push ourselves into positions of high adulthood, when really we could all just fuck it off and live in a camper van and play beach volleyball all day, but we don't, because we're pussies.

2016 August 11, Joel Golby, “A Definitive Ranking of Every Olympic Sport and Whether It Is Cool or Not”, in Vice:


identikit

Blend of identification + kit, originally a trademark.

A picture of a person, reconstructed from strips showing facial features selected to match witnesses' descriptions; used by the police to build a likeness of a person sought for a crime.


heft

en-noun

heft (countable and uncountable, plural hefts)

The noun is derived from Late Middle English heft (“heaviness; something heavy, a weight”), from heven (“to lift, raise; to make an effort to lift or raise, heave”) + -th (suffix denoting a condition, quality, state of being, etc., forming nouns), by analogy with the development of weft from weven (modern English weave), etc. (also compare words like cleft from cleave, and theft from thieve, where the development occurred in Old English or earlier languages). The English word is analysable as heave + -t (suffix forming nouns from verbs).
The verb is probably derived from the noun.

inh

The man had been carried out of the yard while the fire was still burning; […] Public opinion was much divided, some holding that it would go hard with a man of his age and heft; but the common belief seemed to be that he was of that sort "as'd take a deal o'killin'," and that he would be none the worse for such a fall as that.

1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], “Englebourn Village”, in Tom Brown at Oxford: […], part 1st, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC, page 302:

"Look at the heft of 'n [a baby]," said the proud father, "entirely drags ye down, Miss Sybil, 'e do."

1888–1889, Maxwell Gray [pseudonym; Mary Gleed Tuttiett], “Light and Shade”, in The Reproach of Annesley. […], volume I, London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., […], published 1889, →OCLC, part III, page 260:

Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, pages 115–116:

(dated except UK, dialectal and US) The force exerted by an object due to gravitation; weight.

tíha

force exerted by an object due to gravitation — see also weight

The turkey's nest was islanded with a fragrant swath,—the "heft" of the crop noted and rejoiced over,—[…]

1865, [Adeline Dutton Train Whitney], “The Secret at the Hartshornes”, in The Gayworthys: A Story of Threads and Thrums. […], Boston, Mass.: [A. K.] Loring, […], →OCLC, page 49:

He run to South America or somewheres, taking the heft of the firm's money with him.

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 7:

(US, informal, dated) The greater part of something; the bulk, the mass.

Deigning no answer, the sturdy parson seized the bigger of the two ash staves, and laying the butt of the other for a fulcrum, gave the stuck wheel such a powerful heft, that the whole cart rattled, and the crates began to dance.

1882, R[ichard] D[oddridge] Blackmore, “Parson Short”, in Christowell. A Dartmoor Tale. […], volume I, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 35:

It was a tremendous heft to raise the boat on to the wall and push it over, but somehow she managed it; […]

1888, Paul Cushing, “A Gust of the Soul and⸺”, in The Blacksmith of Voe […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1892, →OCLC, page 189:

(UK, dialectal) An act of lifting; a lift.


sunshine

en-noun

sunshine (usually uncountable, plural sunshines)

sunshines (plural)
sun-shine (alternative archaic)

In the Coverdale Bible in 1535, in Genesis and Exodus about 1250 as Middle English sunnesine; synchronically sun + shine. Compare isolated Old English sunsċīn (“mirror”).

Alright sunshine, safe to cross now.

(UK, Ireland) Friendly form of address often reserved for juniors.

OK, sunshine, listen up and listen good. There's five vandalised telephone boxes out there and I know you're responsible.

(UK, Ireland) Ironic form of address used to an inferior or troublemaker.


sizeable

en-adj

sizeable (comparative more sizeable, superlative most sizeable)

more sizeable (comparative)
most sizeable (superlative)

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

City look stronger, fitter and more motivated than last season and even at this early stage the gap feels like a sizeable advantage.

2015 August 16, Daniel Taylor, The Guardian:

(British, alternative in Canada) Alternative spelling of sizable.


borstal

Inherited from Middle English *borstile, *borghstile, from Old English beorh (“a hill”) + stigel (“a stile”).
The institutions are named after Borstal Prison in Borstal, Rochester, Kent, England.

(UK) A way up a hill in the South Downs.

You have juvenile courts. Do you have borstal institutions for juveniles?

2004, August 3, Speaker of the Kenyan National Assembly, Kenya National Assembly Official Record, Hansard, page 3126

Seven years ago, I was sent to borstal. Slithering around in the societal sludge, I was forced to admit I'd made a huge mistake – committing robbery.

2011 November 7, Paris Lees, “My Transsexual Summer: a new view of gender”, in The Guardian:

(British, Ireland) Any institution which provides education to young offenders.


lager lout

(British) A person (especially a young male) who behaves in a violent manner when drunk.

jeune voyou

person who behaves in a violent manner when drunk


Saga lout

A parody of lager lout. Saga is a company that specialises in holidays for older people.

(slang, British) An older unruly tourist on holiday in the Mediterranean area.


Country Code

(British) a set of rules and regulations aimed at tourists visiting the countryside


redundancy

en-noun

redundancy (countable and uncountable, plural redundancies)

non-redundancy

antonym(s) of “state of being redundant”

employment

antonym(s) of “state of being unemployed”

hiring

antonym(s) of “instance or act of dismissal”

1981, New Zealand House of Representatives. Parliamentary Debates, Volume 442, page 4212,
Has he received any representation from Air New Zealand management about redundancy proposals for Air New Zealand staff; and, if so, do these proposals include redundancy agreements?

1983, UK House of Commons, Papers by Command, Volume 40, page lvi,
The potential savings did not take into account once-and-for-all staff redundancy costs of £16.5 million and unspecified costs involved in increasing stock levels […] .

In Estonia, in addition, the ethnical aspects of staff redundancy programmes have to be taken into account.

2003, K. Brendow, Restructuring Estonia′s Oil Shale Industry: What Lessons from the Restructuring the Coal Industries in Central and Eastern Europe?: Oil Shale, page 307:

As well as fighting against pay freezes (the RMT is about to ballot members of TransPennine Express), the union is seeking agreements with Network Rail and train operators that there will be no compulsory redundancies (it already has this agreement with ScotRail). [...] Whether redundancies come and whether they result in industrial action remains to be seen, but it's clear that the RMT is not prepared to show any flexibility towards rail companies.

2020 December 2, Philip Haigh, “A winter of discontent caused by threat of union action”, in Rail, page 63:

(chiefly UK, Australia, New Zealand) The state of being unemployed because one's job is no longer necessary; the dismissal of such an employee; a layoff.


suburb

From Old French suburbe, subburbe, from Latin suburbium (from sub- + urbs (“city”)). Displaced native Old English underburg (literally “sub-” or “under-city”).

ncog

(Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, UK) Any subdivision of a conurbation, not necessarily on the periphery.

حَيّ

Australian, British English, Irish English, New Zealand English: any subdivision of a conurbation


bathing costume

en-noun

bathing costume (plural bathing costumes)

(chiefly British, dated) The clothes that one wears when bathing in the sea or a swimming pool, especially the one-piece garment worn by women and girls.


swimming costume

swimming costume (plural swimming costumes)

(UK, Ireland) the garments that one wears when bathing in the sea or a swimming pool, especially the one-piece garment worn by women and girls.


grike

He climbed over the sedge and eely oarweeds and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a grike.

The Crag is a sort of crag-shaped feature of limestone, rich in minerals and seamed with crevasses or ‘grikes’ as they call them hereabouts.

1973, Kyril Bonfiglioli, Don't Point That Thing at Me, Penguin, published 2001, page 157:

(chiefly British) A deep cleft formed in limestone surfaces due to water erosion; providing a unique habitat for plants.


manor

From Middle English maner, manour; from Old French manoir, from Latin manēre. Doublet of maenor.

'I'm a fatalist,' said Mr James Anderton, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester. [...] James Anderton in his suite of offices on the eleventh floor of the modern glass-and-concrete police building, looking out over his domain, his patch, his manor.

1983, John Mortimer, In character, Allen Lane, page 77:

Dixon, who was finally promoted to sergeant in 1964, policed his 'Dock Green' manor until May 1976 and 'Evening, all' had become a national catchphrase.

2006, Eugene McLaughlin, The New Policing, page 23:

On his release from prison in Holland, Warren returned to his Merseyside 'manor' to resume his role as' King of Coke'.

2013, Nigel Blundell, The World's Most Evil Gangs, John Blake Publishing, →ISBN:

(UK, slang) Any home area or territory in which authority is exercised, often in a police or criminal context.


picky

en-adj

picky (comparative pickier, superlative pickiest)

pickier (comparative)
pickiest (superlative)

picky bits

picky tea

[…] a picky meal of bean-sprouts and humous […]

1988, Jan Webster, One Little Room, page 240:

(UK, colloquial, not comparable) Of food or a meal: consisting of various small items from which the diner can pick and choose.


get on

en-verb

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

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

“I don't know how you and the ‘head,’ as you call him, will get on, but I do know that if you call my duds a ‘livery’ again there'll be trouble. It's bad enough to go around togged out like a life saver on a drill day, but I can stand that 'cause I'm paid for it. […]”

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

John doesn't get on with Jack. They're always arguing.

I wish you and I could learn to get on.

(intransitive, chiefly UK, often with 'with') To have a good relationship; to get along.

I can't get on with prunes. They give me indigestion.

(intransitive, chiefly UK, with 'with') To cope or deal (with).


all-nighter

all-nighters (plural)
allnighter (alternative)
all nighter (alternative)

From all-night + -er = all- + night + -er.

(UK, crime, slang) A session with a prostitute covering the entire night.

(UK, crime, slang) A client of a prostitute who has paid for the entire night.


cock-up

The first word of every section or chapter is generally put in small capitals, after a small neat cock-up letter.

1824, John Johnson, Typographia, volume 2, page 33:

(obsolete, UK, Ireland, printers' slang) A superior letter; a lower-case letter placed above the baseline and made smaller than ordinary script; traditionally used in abbreviations.


cock up

cock up (third-person singular simple present cocks up, present participle cocking up, simple past and past participle cocked up)

cocks up (present singular third-person)
cocking up (participle present)
cocked up (participle past)
cocked up (past)

The first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from the Dictionary of Forces’ Slang (1948). The OED suggests that it derives ultimately from the noun cock, but gives no further detail. The nature of the earliest citation suggests that this expression entered the wider language from military slang, making etymologies from typesetting or archery (see below) seem unlikely. The term is sometimes attributed to the days of manual typesetting, when a letter that had become wedged slightly higher than the other letters on the line was said to be “cocked up”. Another claim relates to medieval archery. One of the three feathers on an arrow is a cock’s feather. If the arrow was incorrectly placed on the bow for drawing and release, the arrow would go off course because of the cock’s feather being up and therefore the arrow positioned wrongly on the bow. This was then known as a “cock up”.

It was cocking her up with gimcrack notions about ladies till she'd be ashamed to look at her own hands after she had done a day's work with them.

1876 May – 1877 July, Anthony Trollope, “‘Wonderful Bird!’”, in The American Senator […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1877, →OCLC, page 282:

I'd take the stick to his back and beat him while I could stand over him—as I done many a time before. The mother, you know, she cocks him up with this and that. . . .

1904–1907 (date written), James Joyce, “Ivy Day in the Committee Room”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, published June 1914, →OCLC, page 146:

(ambitransitive, chiefly UK, Commonwealth, Ireland, slang, mildly vulgar) To ruin (something) unintentionally; to fuck up, mess up, or screw up.


glib

A shortening of either English glibbery (“slippery”) or its source, Low German glibberig, glibberich (“slippery”) / Dutch glibberig (“slippery”).

der

"Well, Sal, you mum your dubber pretty generally, but when you do slacken your glib you may as well do it civilly."

1857, Hidden Links; Or the Schoolfellows. A Tale, volume 2, page 233:

(UK, slang, obsolete) A person's mouth or tongue.


all the way to Egery and back

(British, idiomatic) The long way; a roundabout route; a long distance to travel.


flog a dead horse

en-verb

flog a dead horse (third-person singular simple present flogs a dead horse, present participle flogging a dead horse, simple past and past participle flogged a dead horse)

flogs a dead horse (present singular third-person)
flogging a dead horse (participle present)
flogged a dead horse (participle past)
flogged a dead horse (past)
beat a dead horse (alternative)
flog a dead pony (alternative)

(British, idiomatic) To attempt to get more out of something that cannot give more; to attempt to arouse fresh interest in something that is either hopeless or already settled.

surnud hobust peksta

to attempt to get more out of something that cannot give more

آب در هاون کوبیدن (âb dar hâvan kubidan, literally “to grind water in a mortar”)

решето́м во́ду носи́ть (rešetóm vódu nosítʹ, literally “carry water in a sieve”)

напрасно стараться (naprasno staratʹsja, literally “try hard in vain”)


arse over tit

I missed the step and went arse over tit.

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, idiomatic, vulgar) Tumbling; falling; upside-down, unstable or unbalanced.


lah-di-dah

en-adj

lah-di-dah (comparative more lah-di-dah, superlative most lah-di-dah)

more lah-di-dah (comparative)
most lah-di-dah (superlative)
la-di-da (alternative)
lah-de-dah (alternative)
la-de-da (alternative)
lardy-dardy (alternative archaic)

/ˌlɑːdiːˈdɑː/

c. 1880s, with a comeback in the 1980s due to its use in Annie Hall (1977) by Woody Allen, although in a different context, spoken by the actress Diane Keaton.

(British, derogatory) Of or from the upper class of society.

She was all la-di-da, with her nose in the air, and we were all struggling not to laugh because that would be gauche.

(British, derogatory) Affecting upper-class or superior airs.


at sixes and sevens

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-at sixes and sevens.wav

Unknown, though it may have originated from the game of hazard and the Old French cinc (“five”) and sis (“six”), the riskiest numbers to shoot for, which were misheard and folk-etymologized into English as "six" and "seven".

Yet if his majesty our sovereign lord
Should of his own accord
Friendly himself invite,
And say "I'll be your guest to-morrow night."
How should we stir ourselves, call and command
All hands to work! Let no man idle stand. …
For 'tis a duteous thing
To show all honour to an earthly king,
And after all our travail and our cost,
So he be pleas'd, to think no labour lost.
But at the coming of the King of Heaven
All's set at six and seven:
We wallow in our sin,
Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn.
We entertain him always like a stranger,
And as at first still lodge him in the manger.

17th century, Thomas Ford, "Yet if His Majesty Our Sovereign Lord" (Christ Church MS. 736–8), first published by A. H. Bullen, Lyrics from the Song Books of the Elizabethan Age (1888)

Oh, what a racket! And everything on deck apparently at sixes and sevens. Mail-bags and passengers mixed up in every direction.

1912, Arthur Quiller-Couch, chapter 23, in Poison Island:

A few days after the battle started, we abandoned Pa-chung County. The enemy troops were elated and boasted of their victory. In fact, the loss of Pa-chung County was a great setback for us. The local people, seeing our departure, could not help wavering. Even those engaged in the work of the Soviet government were not altogether clear about the strategy of our army. They were at sixes and sevens, and some went to such lengths as to make preparations for the eventuality that the Red Army might back out of northern Szechwan.

1972, Chang Kuo-tʻao, The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party 1928-1938, volume II, University Press of Kansas, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 342:

(idiomatic, UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) In a state of confusion.


inkling

From Middle English ningkiling, nyngkiling (“hint, slight indication; mention, whisper”), and then either:
* possibly a variant of nikking, nyckyng (“hint, slight indication; mention, whisper”), possibly from nikken (“to mark (a text) for correction (?)”) + -ing, -inge (suffix forming gerunds from verbs); or
* more likely from the rebracketing of an inklyng as a ninkiling, from Middle English inklen (“to mention (in a low voice); to tell (the truth)”) [and other forms] + -ing, -inge; inklen may be derived from inca, inke (“dread, fear; doubt; danger, risk (?)”), from Old English inca (“doubt, uncertainty; suspicion; fear; cause for complaint, grievance, grudge, ill-will, offence; quarrel; occasion, opportunity”), from Proto-Germanic *inkô (“ache; grief; regret”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁eng-, *yenǵ- (“illness”). The English word would then be analysable as inkle + -ing.
Sense 3 (“desire, inclination”) may have been influenced by incline (“to tend to believe or do something”) or French enclin (“inclined, prone”).

inh

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

I requested brother Weder to come up into the stand and commence the preaching. But, inasmuch as he had his own notion about such things, having an inkling towards Quakerism within him,—that is, not to speak until he felt moved to do so, and this inspiration was wanting,—he refused to preach, and remained on his seat in the congregation.

1870 September 17, “The ‘United Brethren in Christ’”, in W[illia]m J. Allinson, editor, Friends’ Review. A Religious, Literary, and Miscellaneous Journal, volume XXIV, number 4, Philadelphia, Pa.: Published at 109 North Tenth Street; Merrihew & Son, printers, […], →OCLC, page 61:

A strong culture maintains the stability of its concepts or doctrines in various ways. One way is to convince its members that their inklings towards change are pathological. But actually the range of health is very broad, and the flexibility of the human mind is great. It is not pathological for belief-systems to change, even continuously, provided we keep them stable enough to allow adequate functioning.

1996, Michael Cavanaugh, Biotheology: A New Synthesis of Science and Religion, Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, →ISBN, page 105:

In the Baathist government in Iraq generally, and Saddam Hussein's regime in particular, the nation-state's inkling towards fascist formation became manifest, undaunted by the necessities of political compromise or niceties of liberal temperance.

2000, Jacqueline S. Ismael, Shereen T. Ismael, “Gender and State in Iraq”, in Suad Joseph, editor, Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East), Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, →ISBN, page 195:

(British, dialectal) A desire, an inclination.


stuffed

en-adj

stuffed (comparative more stuffed, superlative most stuffed)

more stuffed (comparative)
most stuffed (superlative)

'Well, you talked me into it,' said Cornelius. 'I feel really stuffed. I can tell you that for sure. So I could do with a bloody good sleep.'

2011, Nick Oud, The Hatchling and The Human, Xlibris, page 74:

(UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, informal) Very tired.

If the suspension was stuffed already from hitting the concrete base of the fence—and it was—then it was really stuffed by the time we'd gone a kilometre along the railway.

1998, John Marsden, The Night is for Hunting, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, published 2001, unnumbered page:

But if you don't play ball in life, if you don′t go for it with a sincere 'Go, girrrrl' rugby-tackle attitude, you're really stuffed.

2002, Clare de Vries, Of Cats and Kings, page 174:

Although the 14-inch Standard that Yamato targets is stuffed, and maybe the one after that, a prolonged bombardment by a Colorado-class is not gonna do good things to anything - doesn't really matter who you are.

2019 March 6, Drachinifel, 36:17 from the start, in The Battle of Samar (Alternate History) - Bring on the Battleships!, archived from the original on 2022-07-04:

(UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand) Broken, not functional; in trouble, in a situation from which one is unlikely to recover.


yours sincerely

sincerely yours (alternative)
sincerely (alternative)

(idiomatic, chiefly British) A polite, formulaic phrase used at the end of a letter, especially when the sender knows the recipient's name.


yours faithfully

(UK) A polite, formulaic end to a letter, used especially when the sender does not know the recipient's name, for example in a business letter.

Je vous prie d'agréer, Mesdames, Messieurs, l'assurance de ma considération distinguée


rainbow coalition

en-noun

rainbow coalition (plural rainbow coalitions)

Named after the colours associated with various parties: red for Labour, blue for the Conservatives, etc.

(British, Ireland, politics) A government consisting of a coalition of three or more parties, particularly parties with divergent ideologies.


social anthropology

cultural anthropology
cultural anthropology


fearfully

en-adv

fearfully (comparative more fearfully, superlative most fearfully)

more fearfully (comparative)
most fearfully (superlative)

He's a fearfully good striker.

Remember, when a horse is on its side the kicking-strap is useless, and the breechen nearly so, to prevent the swing of its hind legs; your aim is to get it away from the steps or wheel-plate of the trap, which, in its struggles, may cut its legs fearfully.

1 November 1884, John Kemp, Saddlers, Harness Makers, and Carriage Builders' Gazette, volume XIV, London, pages 155–6:


agony aunt

You should write in to the agony aunt; she'll sort it out for you.

Pandora has just left my bedroom. I am just about devastated with frustration. I can't go on like this. I have written to Aunt Clara, the Agony Aunt.

1984, Sue Townsend, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, Methuen, →ISBN, page 20:

The big difference between agony aunts then and today is that now we have the internet to answer those tricky problems about how to eat an avocado pear (a lot of letters in the 70s were avocado-related)[…]

2021 June 20, Philippa Perry, “Ask Philippa: meet the Observer’s brilliant new agony aunt”, in The Observer:

(informal, British, Ireland) A writer of an advice column in a newspaper or other periodical.

I'm sick of everyone coming to me with their problems—I never wanted to be an agony aunt!

(informal, British, Ireland) Someone commonly consulted for advice about personal problems.

垃圾桶

someone consulted for advice about personal problems


all fur coat and no knickers

en-adj

all fur coat and no knickers (not comparable)

A nurse spoke for a number of her colleagues when she said that she felt that these developments were a waste of time and 'all fur coat and no knickers' (personal interview, 1994).

1999, David Brock, Michael J. Powell, Christopher Robin Hinings, Restructuring the professional organization: Accounting, Health Care and Law:

From this viewpoint some forms of Post-Modernism mean new façades for old concepts, dressing the skyscraper, or the vast supermarket in the garb of the tart - 'all fur coat and no knickers'.

2003, Cliff Moughtin, Urban Design: Street and Square:

"What about the wife?"
"Bridget. She was all fur coat and no knickers. A real social climber."
"But you liked her?"
"Yes."

(UK, idiomatic, derogatory) Having a superficially positive appearance that is belied by the reality, e.g., superficially elegant and beautiful but actually common.


sunder

en-verb

sunder (third-person singular simple present sunders, present participle sundering, simple past and past participle sundered)

sunders (present singular third-person)
sundering (participle present)
sundered (participle past)
sundered (past)

From Middle English sundren (“to separate, part, divide”), from Old English sundrian (“to separate, split, part, divide”), from Proto-Germanic *sundrōną (“to separate”), from Proto-Indo-European *sen(e)- (“separate, without”). Cognate with Scots sinder, sunder (“to separate, divide, split up”), Dutch zonderen (“to isolate”), German sondern (“to separate”), Swedish söndra (“to divide”). More at sundry.

der

Where a fair opportunity offers, and the grass is perfectly dry, the hipples are sundered; that is, broken out into beds in the usual manner, turned, and again got up into cocklets, of such size as the state of dryness requires.

1788, William Marshall, The Rural Economy of Yorkshire:

Except under abnormal conditions, protection can be afforded to a field by cutting a strip half a chain in width all round the field, with a reaper and binder for preference, when the crop is in the best condition for hay, and then ploughing or sunder-cutting the stubble.

1941, The Queensland Agricultural and Pastoral Handbook, page 82:

The trees and shrubs all around us began to show the signs of death; dried branches, leafless gray and molding wood. The ground here was as hard as stone, the dirt and dust dry as bone sundered in the desert scorch.

2010, Stony Stern, Run Past The Hunter, page 143:

The world, a good deal of it, sundered, scorched.

2013, Thomas Glave, Among the Bloodpeople: Politics and Flesh, page 165:

(UK, dialect, dated, transitive) To expose to the sun and wind.


prevaricate

en-verb

prevaricate (third-person singular simple present prevaricates, present participle prevaricating, simple past and past participle prevaricated)

prevaricates (present singular third-person)
prevaricating (participle present)
prevaricated (participle past)
prevaricated (past)
prævaricate (alternative archaic)

/pɹɪˈvæɹɪkeɪt/

/pɹɪˈvɛɹɪkeɪt/

From the participle stem of Latin praevāricārī (“to walk crookedly; to play a false or double part”), from prae- + vāricāre (“to stand with feet apart, straddle”), from vāricus (“with feet spread apart”).

der

(law, UK) To undertake something falsely and deceitfully, with the purpose of defeating or destroying it.


blinking

The blinking telly isn't working again.

It's right here in the blinkin' papers! Pictures and all!


hypo

en-noun

hypo (countable and uncountable, plural hypos)

Clipping of various terms beginning with hypo-, from Ancient Greek ὑπό (hupó, “under”).

(slang, finance, British) Hypothecation.


routeing

routeings (plural)
routing (alternative)

The department organising the run-out will send its preferred routeing to the relevant NR national planning team, who will then try to deliver the specification as close as possible to the requested routes and times.

2022 December 14, Pip Dunn, “Caroline is ready for inspection...”, in RAIL, number 972, page 52:

(British) A method of finding paths from origins to destinations in a transport network.


backbench

backbenches (plural)
back bench (alternative)
back-bench (alternative)

His spacious quarters indicate his transition from backbench upstart to established member of the governing team.

There was no separate back-bench organization ; indeed there were no back-bench caucuses in any Nigerian Legislative House, and any attempt to create one would probably have been regarded by the leadership concerned as a subversive move.

1963, Richard L. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation, published 2004, page 400:

Both Thatcher's and Major's PPSs developed the role of trying to see that those members considered loyal to the leadership won the main positions on backbench party committees.

1995, R. L. Borthwick, Churchill to Major: The British Prime Ministership Since 1945, page 153:

In fall 1984, Brian Mulroney led a cabinet with far more political experience than the Conservative backbench.

1997, David Campbell Docherty, Mr. Smith Goes to Ottawa: Life in the House of Commons:

2009, John Coakley, Michael Gallagher, Politics in the Republic of Ireland, page 301,
In situations of low ministerial turnover and increased professionalisation of politics, with most TDs regarding politics as a career, Taoisigh could find that impatience on the backbenches leads to calls for leadership turnover to effect promotions.

A bench at the back of a room or seating area.

(politics, UK, New Zealand, often attributive) In a house of legislature following the model of the Westminster system (such as the UK House of Commons), any bench behind either of the front benches and occupied by members of each party group who are not party leaders, cabinet ministers, holders of offices such as the whips, etc.


Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament (plural Members of Parliament)

Members of Parliament (plural)
MPs (plural)
member of parliament (alternative)

(UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) A representative elected by the voters of an electoral district to a house of a parliament.


House of Lords

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-House of Lords.wav

In between you have the Business Man Jocular: ‘I say, where's the geography, old son?’ or ‘When you need the House of Lords, it's through there.’

1967 December 21, The Listener, page 802:

(UK, humorous euphemistic slang, dated) A lavatory: a room used for urination and defecation.


Houses of Parliament

Palace of Westminster
Palace of Westminster

(UK, politics) The House of Commons and the House of Lords within the Palace of Westminster.


Joe Bloggs

(chiefly British) A personification of the general public, or of an average ordinary person.


ANA

(UK) Initialism of animal nursing assistant.


crib

crib (countable and uncountable, plural cribs)

From Middle English crib, cribbe, from Old English crib, cryb, cribb, crybb (“couch, bed; manger, stall”), from Proto-West Germanic *kribbjā, from Proto-Germanic *kribjǭ (“crib, wickerwork”), from Proto-Indo-European *grebʰ-, *gerbʰ- (“bunch, bundle, tuft, clump”), from *ger- (“to turn, twist”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Kräbbe, Krääb, Krääf (“crib”), West Frisian krêbe (“crib”), Dutch krib (“crib, manger”), German Krippe (“rack, crib”), Danish krybbe (“crib”), Icelandic krubba (“crib”). Doublet of crèche. The sense of ‘stealing, taking notes, plagiarize’ seems to have developed out of the verb.
The criminal sense may derive from the 'basket' sense, circa the mid 18th century, in that a poacher could conceal poachings in such a basket (see the 1772 Samuel Foote quotation). The cheating sense probably derives from the criminal sense.

inh

a day or two afterwards I learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns’s shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was -- dead.

1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “[HTTPS://WEB.ARCHIVE.ORG/WEB/20140811201712/HTTP://ETEXT.VIRGINIA.EDU/ETCBIN/OT2WWW-PUBENG?SPECFILE=%2FTEXTS%2FENGLISH%2FMODSLAENG%2FPUBLICSEARCH%2FMODENGPUB.O2W CHAPTER ?]”, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC:

(British) A bed for a child older than a baby.

He had seen so many lean years of faithful service when the enemy held the corner on all the official cribs that, now in the days of his party’s fatness and of his own righteous reward, the habit of good, honest hustling stuck to him, and he lined up an array of pulls and indorsements that made him swell with happiness every time he went over the list.

1904, Forrest Crissey, Tattlings of a Retired Politician:

but if I have lost my crib and get nothing in exchange I shall feel what a soft Johnny I have been.

1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Stockbroker’s Clerk:

(obsolete) A job, a position; (British) an appointment.

Here's Pannum and Lap, and good Poplars of Yarrum, / To fill up the Crib, and to comfort the Quarron.

1641–42, Richard Brome, A Joviall Crew, or, The Merry Beggars, published 1652, act 2:

(UK, obsolete, thieves' cant) The stomach.


dit

en-verb

dit (third-person singular simple present dits, present participle ditting, simple past and past participle ditted)

dits (present singular third-person)
ditting (participle present)
ditted (participle past)
ditted (past)

From Middle English ditten, dütten, from Old English dyttan (“to stop up, close”), from Proto-West Germanic *duttijan, from Proto-Germanic *duttijaną, from *duttaz (“wisp”), akin to Icelandic dytta. Related to Old English dott (“dot, point”). More at dot.

inh

(UK dialectal, Northern England) To stop up; block (an opening); close (compare Scots dit).


hop it

en-verb

hop it (third-person singular simple present hops it, present participle hopping it, simple past and past participle hopped it)

hops it (present singular third-person)
hopping it (participle present)
hopped it (participle past)
hopped it (past)

It has been rather misty for several mornings, so I told my pal to get ready and we would hop it the next day.

1918 June 15, Private John A. Scott, “A Prisoner of War”, in The Saturday Evening Post, page 28:

"You stop that!" cried a voice in the passage. "It's that blasted Jewess!" said the woman. She went to the kitchen door. "What the 'ell are you doing in our 'ouse? 'Op it, quick, or it will be the worse for you!"

1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

‘[…] But when the others found out about it they got a bit restive, and I had to hop it. One of them pitched a spear at me. […]’

1952, Charlotte Jay, Beat Not the Bones, Wakefield Press, published 2000, →ISBN, page 13:

Alan popped round too at lunchtime but I politely told him to hop it and call back later. He was a bit miffed but three was definitely a crowd.

2003, Stephen Walton, Interference, Lulu, published 2007, →ISBN, page 160:

(British, dismissal) To leave; to go away.


lawks

lawk (alternative)
lauk (alternative)
lork (alternative)
lorks (alternative)

"Lawks! how uncomfortable," said the cook. "And M. Henri, was he wet too?"

"Your civic pride does you credit," said Hwel. "And now, please, leave the cart. I'm sure you've got some wood to gather. Lawks."

(UK, dialectal) Lord! (especially as an expression of surprise)


culprit

From Anglo-Norman cul. prit, contraction of culpable: prest (d'averrer nostre bille) 'guilty: ready (to prove our case)', words used by prosecutor in opening a trial, mistaken in English for an address to the defendant. See culpable. It may have been influenced by Latin culpa (“blame, fault”).

(UK, law) A prisoner accused but not yet tried.


Down's syndrome

(chiefly British, Canada) Alternative form of Down syndrome.


benny

BTW, you might like to see what happens to CM00-01 when one of your sticks of memory decides to have a benny:

2001, Neil Davey, “Sacked Referees”, in alt.games.champ-man (Usenet):

'Like I told the police, I think she's just having a benny.'

"Stop having a benny, Liam." Gwen was getting agitated. Liam was failing miserably at his attempts to get Casey to back down.

2011, Kate Morgan, Wicked Games, page 34:

(UK, slang) Alternative letter-case form of Benny (“tantrum”).


cot death

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-cot death.wav

(pathology, British) The unexplained death of a baby, usually while sleeping.


fully fledged

(UK) Alternative form of full-fledged (US English)


mushy peas

(chiefly British) Dried marrowfat peas which are first soaked overnight and then boiled until they form a paste; a traditional accompaniment to fish and chips.


cop on

cop on (third-person singular simple present cops on, present participle copping on, simple past and past participle copped on)

cops on (present singular third-person)
copping on (participle present)
copped on (participle past)
copped on (past)
cop-on (alternative)

(Ireland, informal, UK, dialect) To come to understand; twig, cotton on.


skillet

→ Missouri French: esquilette

From Old French escuëlette, diminutive of escuëlle (“a porringer”), (French écuelle), from Vulgar Latin scutella, diminutive of scutra, scuta (“tray, dish”). Compare scuttle (“basket”).

(chiefly UK, historical) A large and heavy saucepan or frying pan with legs and, usually, a long handle designed for heating food in a fireplace.


sweater

→ Catalan: suèter

→ Czech: svetr

→ Danish: sweater

→ German: Sweater

→ Hungarian: szvetter

→ Japanese: セーター (sētā)

→ Korean: 스웨터 (seuweteo)

→ Polish: sweter

→ Portuguese: suéter

desctree

→ Russian: сви́тер (svíter)
→ Crimean Tatar: sviter
→ Georgian: სვიტრი (sviṭri)
→ Uzbek: sviter

→ Spanish: suéter

→ Swahili: sweta

→ Turkish: süveter

From Middle English swētere, equivalent to sweat + -er.

Among them were the "sweaters" who formed a circle round their prisoner and pricked him with their swords until he sank exhausted to the ground, […]

William Lecky, quoted in 1965, Gilbert Geis, Juvenile Gangs (page 6)

(UK, obsolete) A London street ruffian in Queen Anne's time who prodded passers-by with his sword-point.


lax

From Middle English lax, from Old English leax (“salmon”), from Proto-West Germanic *lahs (“salmon”), from Proto-Germanic *lahsaz (“salmon”), from Proto-Indo-European *laḱs- (“salmon, trout”). Cognate with Middle Dutch lacks, lachs, lasche (“salmon”), Middle Low German las (“salmon”), German Lachs (“salmon”), Norwegian laks (“salmon”), Danish laks (“salmon”), Swedish lax (“salmon”), Icelandic lax (“salmon”), Lithuanian lašišà (“salmon”), Latvian lasis, Russian лосо́сь (losósʹ, “salmon”), Albanian leshterik (“eel-grass”). Doublet of lox.

der

(now chiefly UK dialectal, Scotland) A salmon.


cringe

en-noun

cringe (countable and uncountable, plural cringes)

Charles Reade
The Cloister and the Hearth
zero derivation

The verb is derived from Middle English crengen (“to bend in a haughty manner; to condescend”) [and other forms], from Old English *crenċan, *crenċġan, *crenġan (“to cause to fall or turn”), the causative of crinċġan (“to yield; to cringe; to fall; to die, perish”), from Proto-Germanic *krangijaną (“to cause to fall; to cause to turn”), from Proto-Germanic *kringaną, *krinkaną (“to fall; to turn; to yield”) (from Proto-Indo-European *grenǵʰ- (“to turn”)) + *-janą (suffix forming causatives with the sense ‘to cause to do (the action of the verb)’ from strong verbs). The English word is cognate with Danish krænge (“to turn inside out, evert”), Dutch krengen (“to careen, veer”) and Dutch kring (“circle”), Scots crenge, creenge, creinge, crienge (“to cringe; to shrug”), Swedish kränga (“to careen; to heel, lurch; to toss”), and West Frisian kringe (“to pinch; to poke; to push; to insist, urge”); and is a doublet of crinkle.
The noun and adjective are derived from the verb via zero derivation.

ref

From Charles Reade (1861) chapter XXXIII, in The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages, illustrated library edition, volume II (The Autobiography of a Thief), Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Colonial Press Company, published c. 1900, →OCLC, illustration between pages 312 and 313.

nb...

crenche, crenchen, crenge, *crinchen, crinken

cog

(countable, British, dialectal) A crick (“painful muscular cramp or spasm of some part of the body”).


monosyllable

(UK, slang, obsolete) A euphemism for the word cunt


the penny drops

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-the penny drops.wav

The penny dropped as Fred realised he had been conned.

Suddenly various pennies began to drop; now I understood obscure remarks that had been made in my presence by the Ryans, or by the nuns at school, or by Old Brigid or Tommy's foster-mother.

1979, Dervla Murphy, Wheels Within Wheels, page 56:

AMY: In the time I've known you, when have you shown the slightest interest in a girl?
MELS: Penny in the air!
AMY: I've known you for, what, 10 years? I've seen you practically every day. Name one girl you've paid the slightest bit of attention to? (RORY is flustered, runs from the room.)
AMY: Oh my God! Rory! (AMY runs after RORY.)
MELS: And the penny drops!

2011 August 27 (broadcast date), Doctor Who, series 6, episode 8, Let's Kill Hitler

(UK, informal) Understanding is reached; one comprehends.

der faldt tiøren

understanding is reached, one comprehends

נפל לו האסימון (nafál lo ha'asimón, literally “the token has dropped for him”)

ירד לו האסימון (yarád lo ha'asimón, literally “the token has descended for him”)

دو هزازش جا افتاد meaning "his(/her) two thousand dropped"

дошло́ (došló, literally “[It] reached [him/her]”)


enamoured

en-adj

enamoured (comparative more enamoured, superlative most enamoured)

more enamoured (comparative)
most enamoured (superlative)

UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada spelling of enamored.


whinge

en-verb

whinge (third-person singular simple present whinges, present participle whingeing or whinging, simple past and past participle whinged)

whinges (present singular third-person)
whingeing (participle present)
whinging (participle present)
whinged (participle past)
whinged (past)
winge (alternative)
quhynge (alternative)

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

From a northern variant of Old English hwinsian (“to whine”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwinisōn (“to whine”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwīnan (“to whine”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwey- (“to hiss, whistle, whisper”). Cognate with German winseln (“to whine, whimper”).

der

Argh! He has been whinging about it all night, even though he knows there's nothing we can do.

I know it won't help but sometimes it feels better to whinge about the things that annoy me.

"'D' ye hear what's come ower ye now,' continued the virago, 'ye whingeing Whig carles? D'ye hear wha's coming to cow yer cracks?"

1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], chapter I, in Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:

You crossed her last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don’t whinge like some hired mute from Lalouette’s.

1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

Mostly, they were wingeing about the lousy cook and the same thing served too often

1992, Sky Phillips, Secret mission to Melbourne, November, 1941, page 45:

His wife will winge her bloody head off, but Nev will come good.

1993, Michael Fisher, The Nightmare Man, page 169:

"I'm miserable," Sam proclaimed, plodding behind with his shoelace flapping. "Nobody ever gives me butter-pies when I need them." / "Shut up," said Jonathan. "Stop wingeing."

2002, Diana Wynne Jones, A Tale of Time City, page 41:

2012, John Lyons, The Australian, 1st Dec issue, Action stations as sea giants stay vigilant on the frontline
"You know the problem these days with young people? Get them to carry a 500-pound bomb and within 30 seconds they're making noises," he says, imitating a whingeing sound.

(UK, Commonwealth, Ireland) To whine; to complain, especially in an annoying or persistent manner.


whinge

whinges (plural)
winge (alternative)
quhynge (alternative)

Her whinges grew even shriller and more annoying the longer we had to listen to them.

(UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland) A cry.

I know you don't like it, but your whinges won't solve the problem!

(UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland) A peevish complaint.


upkeep

en-verb

upkeep (third-person singular simple present upkeeps, present participle upkeeping, simple past and past participle upkept)

upkeeps (present singular third-person)
upkeeping (participle present)
upkept (participle past)
upkept (past)

Do you know how to upkeep a boat?

As for the city's buildings, it mostly resembled a town of white spires and cobblestone streets lined with flowerbeds that were upkept by magical means.

2014, James Blackthorne, Meditations of Madness: The Lost Empires Exposed:

(transitive, British) To maintain (something) or keep it in good repair.

поддържам

to maintain (something) or keep it in good repair


gawping

gawping faces


mish

en-noun

mish (countable and uncountable, plural mishes)

Simple spoken contraction of mission, missionary.

I haven't been on a mish in ages. I need some excitement. Do you get mad toey and hungry afterwards?

2015, Marlee Jane Ward, Welcome to Orphancorp:

(British, slang, countable) A mission or task.


Cockney

First attested in Samuel Rowland's 1600 The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head-Vaine as "a Bowe-bell Cockney", from Middle English cokenay (“a spoiled child; a milksop, an effeminate man”), used in the 16th c. by English country folk as a term of disparagement for city dwellers, of uncertain etymology. Possibly from Middle English cokeney (“a small, misshapen egg”), from coken (“cocks'”) + ey (“egg”) or from Cockney and Cocknay, variants of Cockaigne, a mythical land of luxury (first attested in 1305) eventually used as a humorous epithet of London. Compare cocker (“to spoil a child”).

der

(UK) From the East End of London, or London generally.


Cockney

COCKNEY, a native of London. An ancient nickname implying effeminacy, used by the oldest English writers, and derived from the imaginary fool's paradise, or lubberland, Cockaygne.

1859, J.C. Hotten, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant and Vulgar Words, section 22:

Londoners, and all within the sound of Bow Bell, are in reproach called Cockneys.

A Cockney or Cocksie, applied only to one born within the sound of Bow bell, that is in the City of London.

“Charming place, ma’am,” said he, bowing to the widow; “noble prospect—delightful to us Cocknies, who seldom see anything but Pall Mall.”

1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 26, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

Parkinson: You made films before, but the part that really made your name was Zulu, wasn't it […] and there of course—against type—you played the toff, you played the officer.
Caine: I played the officer, yeah, and everybody thought I was like that. Everyone was so shocked when they met me, this like Cockney guy had played this toffee-nosed git.

2000 December 18, BBC and Bafta Tribute to Michael Caine, 16:43-17:05:

(UK) A Londoner born within earshot of the city's Bow Bells, or (now generically) any working-class Londoner.


leggy

en-adj

leggy (comparative leggier, superlative leggiest)

leggier (comparative)
leggiest (superlative)

Fred preferred leggy blondes.

(UK, US, chiefly of a woman) Having long, attractive legs; long-legged.


thermionic valve

en-noun

thermionic valve (plural thermionic valves)

The age of electronics began in 1906 with Lee De Forest's invention of the vacuum tube, or, as the British (led by John Ambrose Fleming, whose work preceded De Forest's) described it, the thermionic valve.

2012, George Dyson, Turing's Cathedral, Penguin, published 2013, page 65:

(chiefly historical) An electronic device incorporating electrons from a glowing cathode inside an evacuated glass tube, functioning as a switch, amplifier etc.


CID

(British, law enforcement, initialism) Scotland Yard Criminal Investigation Department


peeler

From the surname of Sir Robert Peel, who established the Irish constabulary and London's police force; compare bobby, from the given name.

A peeler man who heard the din came in to see the show;
He tried to run the bushman in, but he refused to go.
And when at last the barber spoke, and said "'Twas all in fun—
'Twas just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone."

1892, Banjo Paterson, The Man from Ironbark:

I’d covered pretty nearly two miles before I came across a peeler, — and when I did the man was cracked — and he thought me mad, or drunk, or both. By the time I’d got myself within nodding distance of being run in for obstructing the police in the execution of their duty, […] Holt was out of sight.

I was standin' there and the car came down the street with the two peelers comin' after them and I'm standin' here with [my son] in my arms.

2004, Alice McIntyre, Women in Belfast: How Violence Shapes Identity, →ISBN, page 57:

How do you fight back to get your right back to walk free down the street when your name and address singles you out for every Peeler on the beat?

2004, “Don’t Hand Me Over”, in The Box Set 1964-2004(2004) No.2, performed by Christy Moore:

Special Irish Branch was looking for Fenians in South Kensington; going from there to a Catholic church for Easter Mass was very nearly the stupidest thing Eliza could do, short of walking into Scotland Yard and cursing the peelers out in Irish.

2011, Marie Brennan, With Fate Conspire, →ISBN:

It was Jem and Georgie that was in mortal danger, true, but there was not one of us that wanted the peelers asking us questions.

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, slang) A police officer.


duck's arse

ducks' arses (plural)
duck's ass (alternative)

(British, Ireland, informal, vulgar) A hairstyle in which the hair is swept back along the sides of the head to meet in a point at the back, thus resembling a duck as seen from behind.


fuck all

I've learned fuck all.

(Commonwealth, UK, Ireland, vulgar) Nothing at all or very little.


fuck all

If you can't do this then there's fuck all hope for you.

There was fuck all else he could have done.

There are fuck all decent pubs around here.


bugger all

You may not like paying taxes, but there's bugger all you can do about it.

(Commonwealth, UK, Ireland, vulgar) Nothing.


Fanny Adams

sweet Fanny Adams (alternative)
sweet FA (alternative)
SFA (alternative)

From Fanny Adams (1859–1867), a young girl brutally murdered and dismembered. Tins of mutton introduced in the British navy after her death were not liked by the sailors and were humorously said to be her butchered remains. Fanny Adams then came to mean any worthless thing, and, eventually, nothing at all ("sweet F A").
Coincidentally, the initials "FA" also fit the vulgar term fuck all, also meaning "nothing at all", leading to later perception of "Fanny Adams", or "FA", being a euphemism for the latter.

The Engineer Lieutenant pushed his head inside his neighbour's cabin: “Come along—come along! You'll be late for dinner. Fresh grub to-night: no more ‘Russian Kromeskis’ and ‘Fanny Adams’!”

1916, Bartimeus [pseudonym; Sir Lewis Ritchie], Naval Occasions, and Some Traits of the Sailor-man, Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons:

(UK, naval slang, obsolete, derogatory) Tinned meat.

(chiefly British) Nothing (now largely perceived as euphemistic for fuck all).


paraffin

paraffin (countable and uncountable, plural paraffins)

paraffins (plural)
paraffine (alternative dated)

From Latin paraffinum, from parum (too little) + affinis (related, affinity). Therefore low affinity or being chemically neutral.

She poured paraffin on the dry floors and on the pandanus-mats, and then she set fire.

1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 57”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:

(UK, Ireland) A petroleum-based thin and colourless fuel oil.


compere

A borrowing of French compère (“partner, accomplice”), from Old French comper, from Late Latin compater (“godfather”), from Latin com- (“with”) + pater (“father”). Doublet of compeer, compadre, and goombah.

doublet

Every year I am the compere for our Church Quiz Night.

The compere came onto the stage holding the gold envelope that contained the winner's name.

2008, Kerry Katona, The Footballer's Wife, →ISBN, page 157:

Not only for his fighting expertise but also reminiscent of a compere in a cabaret show working the crowd, as a build up to the main event.

2012, Steve Taberner, The Wigan Hammer: The Autobiography by Steve Taberner, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 249:

They were barely settled when the final song came to an end; the audience began to applaud and after a few more seconds the voice of the compere came over the PA.

2012, Sue Welfare, One Night Only, HarperCollins, →ISBN, unnumbered page:

master of ceremonies
master of ceremonies

(chiefly UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) A master of ceremonies, especially for a television, variety, or quiz show.


skint

en-adj

skint (comparative skinter or more skint, superlative skintest or most skint)

skinter (comparative)
more skint (comparative)
skintest (superlative)
most skint (superlative)

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

The "penniless" sense is attested since 1925 and is derived from a variant of skinned

There were a mixture of local people with cold, pinched faces and skint and harassed looking tourists sitting around fondling their itchsome facial hair, their tongues lolling into fizzy yellow pints of lager.

2000, Tim Bradford, Is Shane MacGowan still alive?:

Mr Grave proceeded to give a stern warning to those “errant pupils” who, against the rules, had been smuggling their mobile phones into school. This was just about everyone, though Zoe was far too skint to even dream of ever owning one.

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

(slang, UK, Commonwealth, Ireland) Penniless, poor, impecunious, broke.


vermicelli

en-noun

vermicelli (usually uncountable, plural vermicellis)

→ Irish: veirmisilí

From Italian vermicelli, plural of vermicello (“little worm”), from verme (“worm”), from Latin vermis + -cello (“diminutive suffix”).


registration

registration (countable and uncountable, plural registrations)

/ˌɹɛd͡ʒ.ɪˈstɹeɪ.ʃən/

/ˌɹed͡ʒ.ɪˈstɹæɪ.ʃən/

Did you get their registration?

registration number
registration number#English


polling station

polling station (plural polling stations)

Dastis defended the Spanish police’s actions as they tried to halt the referendum, even though other members of the government have apologised for the violent scenes when officers raided polling stations, charged the crowds with batons and fired rubber bullets.

2017 October 22, Sam Jones, “Catalonia weighs up declaration of independence”, in the Guardian:

(British, Canada, Australia) a place where voters go to cast their ballot in an election or referendum; a voting station


lightning conductor

lightning conductor (plural lightning conductors)

(UK) A metallic conductor that is attached to a high point of a building and leads to the ground and protects the building from damage by lightning.


poignant

en-adj

poignant (comparative more poignant, superlative most poignant)

more poignant (comparative)
most poignant (superlative)

From Middle English poynaunt, poynant, borrowed from Anglo-Norman puignant, poynaunt etc., present participle of poindre (“to prick”), from Latin pungō (“prick”). Doublet of pungent.

(chiefly British, dated) Inducing sharp physical pain.