Browse dictionary
Showing 1-20 of 23 results in 23 entries
1. big-endian, n. and adj. View full entry 1726
...In Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels: a person who believes that eggs should be broken at the larger end before they are eaten. Hence allusively, esp....
2. campus, n. View full entry 1774
...The grounds of a college or university; the open space between or around the buildings; a separate part of a university. Hence allusively, university or college life or people. Also attrib....
3. Derby, n. View full entry 1769
...An annual horse-race, founded in 1780 by the twelfth Earl of Derby, and run at the Epsom races, usually on the Wednesday before, or the second Wednesday after, Whitsunday (the...
4. dump, n.2 View full entry 1770-90
...A term familiarly applied to various objects of ‘dumpy’ shape....
5. houri, n. View full entry 1745
...A nymph of the Muslim Paradise. Hence applied allusively to a voluptuously beautiful woman....
6. Jeremiah, n. View full entry 1781
...The name of a Hebrew prophet (see jeremiad), used allusively to denote a person given to lamentation or woeful complaining....
7. long knife, n. View full entry 1774
...N. Amer. Hist. (Freq. pl., and with capital initials.) A name given by North American Indians to white settlers, esp. of Virginia, or white soldiers. In Canada, spec....
8. Lucian, n. View full entry 1752
...Used allusively. A witty scoffer....
9. Mason–Dixon, n. View full entry 1776
...the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, taken as the northern limit of slave-owning U.S. states before the abolition of slavery. Later freq. used allusively in contexts in which cultural or...
10. morituri te salutant, phr. View full entry 1704
...Originally, addressed to the emperor by gladiators in ancient Rome on entering the arena, in anticipation of their death: ‘Those about to die salute you!’ Later allusively, used by a...
11. panem et circenses, n. View full entry 1787
...Bread and circuses or (more generally) food and entertainment, regarded as typically satisfying the desires of the mass of the people; hence used allusively of anything which pleases and pacifies...
12. pigskin, n. and adj. View full entry ?1742
...The skin of a pig; leather made from this....
13. Prospero, n. View full entry ?c1785
...(A name for) a person or thing likened to Prospero, esp. with reference to being capable of magic or to influencing the behaviour or perceptions of others without their knowledge....
14. ˈscalping-knife, n. View full entry 1759
...A knife such as that used by the North American Indians in scalping their enemies....
15. seven-league(d, adj. View full entry 1793
...seven-league(d) bootsFrenchbottes de sept lieues, the boots in the fairy story of Hop o' my Thumb, which enabled the wearer to cover seven leagues at each step. Hence allusively...
16. Shylock, n. View full entry 1786
...Allusively. An extortionate usurer. Also: a Jew; a pawnbroker; in U.S. (with lower-case initial), an abusive term for a moneylender; = loan-sharkloan2b. (These uses are...
17. tar-brush, n. View full entry 1711
...A brush used for smearing anything with tar. knight of the tar-brush, allusively applied to a sailor: cf. tar3....
18. tractor, n. View full entry 1798
...pl. (in full (Perkins's) metallic tractors): Name of a device invented by Elisha Perkins, an American physician (died 1799), consisting of a pair of pointed rods of...
19. Trophonian, adj. View full entry 1792
...Pertaining to Trophonius, the mythical builder of the original temple of Apollo at Delphi, who after his death was worshipped as a god, and had an oracle in a cave in Bœotia,...
20. yahoo, n. View full entry 1726
...A name invented by Swift in Gulliver's Travels for an imaginary race of brutes having the form of men; hence transf. and allusively, a human being...
