Barbara Ann Kipfer - Phraseology

Copyright 2008 by Barbara Ann Kipfer
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Thank you to Sourcebooks, especially Peter Lynch, for allowing me to create a follow-up to Word Nerd. Special thanks for support and editing assistance goes to my husband, Paul Magoulas.

To all the fans of my previous word books, please enjoy, as I intend this to be my last book in the genre.

Phraseology is a collection of really interesting things you probably do not know about thousands and thousands of phrases. This book is the result of a hobby of gathering observations about words, something that has just come naturally during my nearly thirty years as a professional lexicographer. It is a delightful hobby, writing down what I find to be truly interesting definitions, fascinating origins or histories, details of usage, surprising trivia, useful synonyms, or unexpected connections between phrases. In Phraseology, I have caught the interesting details about thousands of phrases and now present them to the wide world of word-lovers.

Phraseology contains notes from books about word history and etymology, unusual or lost or uncommon words, grammar instruction and usage, word trivia, differences between confusable words, how phrases are formedfrom all the general and specialized dictionaries and language books that I have read. In Phraseology, I have distilled many, many bookshelves' worth of books in each of these areas, and now they are presented together for others to enjoy.

Readers will be inspired by Phraseology to explore further. They will find that any trip through Phraseology is a really cool way to learn things about phrases, things that may be useful, or things that they can then turn around and describe to their friends and families. In opening to any page, readers can have experiences like wow, I had forgotten that, or that is certainly something I did not know, or aha! that is what that means! or oh, that is where that came from! These phrases, including idioms and slang, greatly enhance the reader's knowledge and understanding by filling in his vocabulary with interesting information about phrases.

{ A }

A.1. steak sauce is so named for its being the very best, and it was created in 1824

a cappella is Italian for in chapel style

the phrase coups de dictionnaire means with blows of a dictionary, with constant reference to a dictionary

a cup too low means to not have drunk enough to be in good spirits

a fortiori means stronger reason, still more conclusively (from Latin)

la is a compound preposition before nouns, and the corresponding masculine preposition is au, as in au pair

la carte is French, literally by the card, in other words, ordered by separate items

la Florentine means with spinach

la mode for beef means made in a rich stew, usually with wine and vegetables

la nioise refers to hot or cold dishes with tomatoes, black olives, garlic, and anchovies; also called nioise

A-list first meant first in a series of lists (1890)

the phrase a number of is used with plural nouns (it is a determiner) and the verb should therefore be plural: A number of people are waiting to buy tickets

a posteriori, Latin from the latter, refers to an argument which proves the cause from the effect

to cook something point means just enough, not overcooked or undercooked

a priori is from Latin, literally from what comes first

ab ovo, from the beginning, is from Latin, literally from the egg

an abat-jour is a skylight or device for deflecting light downward

an Abbott and Costello is frankfurters and beans in diner slang

abbreviated piece of nothing is slang for a worthless or insignificant person

Abderian laughter comes from Abdera, in Thrace, whose citizens were considered rustic simpletons who would laugh at anything or anyone they didn't understand

abel-wackets are blows given on the palm of the hand with a twisted handkerchief, instead of a ferula; a jocular punishment among seamen, who sometimes played at cards for wackets, the loser suffering as many strokes as he has lost games

ablation is the evaporation or melting of part of the outer surface of a spacecraft, through heating by friction with the atmosphere

abominable snowman (1921) is a literal translation of the Tibetan term Meetoh Kangmi, foul snowman, and Tibetan yeh-the, little manlike animal, gave us yeti in the 1930s

about-face is a shortening of right about face, a cavalry instruction since around 1800

above snakes is a way of saying above the ground

above the fold is the content of a Web page that can be seen without scrolling down; also called above the scroll

Abraham's bosom is another word for heaven

absence of mind is the failure to remember what one is doing

there are adjectives that are absolute and cannot take more/most, less/least, or intensives like largely, quite, or very: absolute, adequate, chief, complete, devoid, entire, false, fatal, favorite, final, ideal, impossible, inevitable, infinite, irrevocable, main, manifest, only, paramount, perfect, perpetual, possible, preferable, principal, singular, stationary, sufficient, unanimous, unavoidable, unbroken, uniform, unique, universal, void, whole

absolute music (abstract music, pure music) is music for its own sakeconcerned only with structure, melody, harmony, and rhythm

absolute zero is calculated to be -460 degrees F, the point at which it is impossible to get colder, the lowest temperature that is theoretically possible

absolution day is the Tuesday before Easter

the absolutive case is used to indicate the patient or experiencer of a verb's action, the subject of an intransitive verb, as well as the object of a transitive verb

absorbent ground is a ground prepared for a picture, chiefly with distemper, or watercolors, by which the oil is absorbed, and a brilliancy is imparted to the colors

abstract expressionism is a description generally applied to aspects of modern American painting in the late 1940s and early 1950s which were concerned both with the various forms of abstraction and with psychic self-expression

abstract language