Israeli security service, 1964, from Modern Hebrew shin + bet, names of the initial letters of sherut bitahon (kelali) "(general) security service."
dominant online service of the late 1990s, initialism (acronym) of America Online, a company name attested from late 1989.
internet map service, known by that name from 1996; acquired by AOL in 2000. As a verb, by 1997.
also I.R.S., initialism (acronym) of Internal Revenue Service, U.S. federal government tax collection agency, attested by 1954. The office dates to 1862; name changed 1953 from Bureau of Internal Revenue.
1798, from French fronde (14c.), "sling," from Old French fonde "sling, catapult," from Latin funda "a sling; dragnet, casting-net," a word of unknown origin. It was the name given to the party which rose against Mazarin and the court during the minority of Louis XIV, supposedly from the use of stone-casting slings to attack property of their opponents, or from their opponents' contemptuous comparison of them to the slingshot-armed street boys of Paris. Hence the name sometimes was used figuratively for "violent political opposition." Related: Frondeur.
literally (one who or that which) "fears nothing," from the verbal phrase (drede ich nawiht is attested from c. 1200); see dread (v.) + nought (n.). As a synonym for "battleship" (1916) it is from a specific ship's name. Dreadnought is mentioned as the name of a ship in the Royal Navy as early as c. 1596, but the modern generic sense is from the name of the first of a new class of British battleships, based on the "all big-gun" principle (armed with 10 big guns rather than 4 large guns and a battery of smaller ones), launched Feb. 18, 1906.
capital city of Sweden; it arose mid-13c. from a fishing village; the second element in the name is holm "island" (see holm); the first is either stäk "bay" or stock "stake, pole." Related: Stockholmer.
Stockholm Syndrome is from 1978, a psychologists' term; the name derives from the Aug. 23, 1973, violent armed robbery of Sveriges Kreditbank in Stockholm, after which four bank employees were held hostage in a vault for more than five days. The hostages developed a dramatic attachment to their abuser, and a fear of would-be rescuers, that they could not explain.
"state policeman," 1974, from truckers' slang, in reference to the wide-brim style of hat worn by state troopers (the hats so called by 1969). Ultimately the reference is to the popular illustrated character of that name, a bear dressed in forest ranger gear (including a hat like those later worn by state troopers). He was introduced in 1944 by the U.S. Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council in a campaign to lower the number of forest fires in the West.
late 14c. as a term of reproach for a corrupt or lax prelate, from the Roman surname, especially that of Pontius Pilate, a governor of the Roman province of Judaea under Tiberius, from Latin Pilatus, literally "armed with javelins," from pilum "javelin" (see pile (n.2)).
Other than having presided over the trial of Jesus and ordering his crucifixion, little is known of him. In Middle English pilates vois was "a loud, boastful voice," of the sort used by Pilate in the mystery plays. Among slang and cant uses of Pontius Pilate mentioned in the 1811 "Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit and Pickpocket Eloquence" is "(Cambridge) a Mr. Shepherd of Trinity College; who disputing with a brother parson on the comparative rapidity with which they read the liturgy, offered to give him as far as Pontius Pilate in the Belief."
