Definition:
Neat and orderly.
Description:
‘It looks good, everything seems to be in apple pie order.’
Apparently comes from the French ‘nappes pliees’ meaning folded linen.
Source:
unknown
Mar 07
daveEveryday, Life, Literary american, australian, british, english
Definition:
a fanatically puritanical person
Description:
‘Wowser’ is a delightful word with an interesting background, though its ultimate origin is unknown.
The word first appeared in print in 1899, in the Australian journal Truth, and was instantly popular in Australia. It rapidly spread to New Zealand, where it remains in use, and then eventually arrived in England, possibly brought by the Australian troops who served there during World War I.
The American writer and editor H. L. Mencken liked “wowser” and attempted to introduce it to the United States. He used the word frequently in American Mercury, the literary magazine he edited.
Despite Mencken’s efforts, however, the term never became particularly popular in American English; it is used occasionally, but it never truly caught on.
Mar 07
daveEveryday, Life slang
Definition:
A rhetorical response to a statement.
Description:
The original phrase is: Word is Bond
it was intended to be used to affirm ones promise.
Mar 07
daveEveryday, Life english
Definition:
to influence or entice by soft words or flattery
Description:
‘Wheedle’ has been a part of the English lexicon since the mid-17th century, though no one is quite sure how the term made its way into English. (It has been suggested that the term may have derived from an Old English word that meant ‘to beg,’ but this is far from certain.)
Once established in the language, however, ‘wheedle’ became a favorite of some of the language’s most illustrious writers. ‘Wheedle’ and related forms appear in the writings of Wordsworth, Dickens, Kipling, Dryden, Swift, Scott, Tennyson, and Pope, among others.
Mar 07
daveLiterary, Shakespeare british, english, latin
Definition:
of strange or extraordinary character
Description:
You may know today’s word as a generalized term for anything unusual, but ‘weird’ also has older meanings that are more specific. ‘Weird’ derives from the Old English noun ‘wyrd,’ essentially meaning ‘fate.’
By the late 8th century, the plural ‘wyrde’ had begun to appear in texts as a gloss for ‘Parcae,’ the Latin name for the Fates — three goddesses who spun, measured, and cut the thread of life. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Scots authors employed ‘werd’ or ‘weird’ in the phrase ‘weird sisters’ to refer to the Fates.
William Shakespeare adopted this usage in Macbeth, in which the ‘weird sisters’ are depicted as three witches. Subsequent adjectival use of ‘weird’ grew out of a reinterpretation of the ‘weird’ in Shakespeare.
Mar 07
daveLiterary
Definition:
Utterly useless existence
Description:
Originated from Nietzsche, the Superman (Essay)