slang | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

45 entries found.

also drug-store, 1810, American English, "pharmacy, store that sells medications and related products," from drug (n.) + store (n.). Drug-store cowboy is 1925, American English slang, originally someone who dressed like a Westerner but obviously wasn't.

shut up (v.)

c. 1400, "keep from view or use," from shut (v.) + up (adv.). Meaning "cause to stop talking" is from 1814; intransitive meaning "cease from speaking" is from 1840. Put up or shut up "defend yourself or be silent" is U.S. slang, by 1868.

arbor vitae (n.)

also arbor-vitae, type of evergreen shrub, 1660s, name given by French physician and botanist Charles de Lécluse, Latin, literally "tree of life;" see arbor (n.2) + vital. Also used in late 18c. rogue's slang as a cant word for "penis."

rat fink (n.)

also ratfink, 1963, teen slang, see rat (n.) + fink (n.). Popularized by, and perhaps coined by, U.S. custom car builder Ed "Big Daddy" Roth (1932-2001), who made a hot-rod comic character of it, supposedly to lampoon Mickey Mouse.

bug off (v.)

"leave quickly," by 1956, perhaps from bugger off (see bugger (v.)), which chiefly is British (by 1920s) but was picked up in U.S. Air Force slang in the Korean War. Also see bug (v.3). To bug out "leave quickly, scram" is from 1953.

Hobson's choice (n.)

English university slang term, supposedly a reference to Thomas Hobson (c. 1544-1631), Cambridge stable manager who let horses and gave customers a choice of the horse next in line or none at all. Phrase popularized c. 1660 by Milton, who was at Cambridge from 1625-29.

go west (v.)

19c. British idiom for "die, be killed" (popularized during World War I), "probably from thieves' slang, wherein to go west meant to go to Tyburn, hence to be hanged, though the phrase has indubitably been influenced by the setting of the sun in the west" [Partridge]. Compare go south.

etaoin shrdlu

1931, journalism slang, the sequence of characters you get if you sweep your finger down the two left-hand columns of Linotype keys, which is what typesetters did when they bungled a line and had to start it over. It was a signal to cut out the sentence, but sometimes it slipped past harried compositors and ended up in print.

post office (n.)

1650s, "public department in charge of letter-carrying," from post (n.3) + office. Meaning "building where postal business is carried on, office or place where letters are received for transmission," is from 1650s. In slang or euphemistic sense of "a sexual game" it refers to an actual parlor game first attested early 1850s in which pretend "letters" were paid for by kisses.

kitchen sink (n.)

sink to wash food, dishes, etc., 1824. Phrase everything but (or and) the kitchen sink is attested from 1944, from World War II armed forces slang, in reference to intense bombardment.

Out for blood, our Navy throws everything but the kitchen sink at Jap vessels, warships and transports alike. [Shell fuel advertisement, Life magazine, Jan. 24, 1944]

Earlier was everything but the kitchen stove (1919).

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