Lmst

#WordOrigins

emoji

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/emoji

#etymology #wordorigins #language

A table of 12 emoji showing stylized faces displaying various emotions and moods

witch hunt

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/witch-hunt

#etymology #wordorigins #language #uspolitics

c. 1892 lithograph of the Salem witch trials; a 17th-century court in an uproar, a woman in the dock, lightning comes through a window, a man lies prone on the floor

antifa

https://wordorigins-org.ghost.io/antifa-2/

#etymology #wordorigins #language #uspolitics

Stylized image of a 1940s newspaper newsroom with the words “Wordorigins.org: Words in the News”

hag

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/hag

#etymology #language #wordorigins

The Hag of the Mill, Arthur Rackham, 1920; drawing of an emaciated woman with a cat on her shoulder and a staff, dressed in rags, leading an emaciated dog and horse

Mecca

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/mecca

#etymology #wordorigins #language

The Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia; nighttime photo of a large black cube surrounded by pilgrims within an open-air mosque; beyond are minarets & city buildings

Judeo-Christian

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/judeo-christian

#etymology #wordorigins #language

A symbol of Messianic Judaism; Graphic that combines images of a menorah, a Magan David, and the Christian fish symbol

Medbed: from science fiction to conspiracy theory to the presidential announcements

https://wordorigins-org.ghost.io/medbed/

#etymology #wordorigins #language #uspolitics

Stylized image of a 1940s newspaper newsroom with the words “Wordorigins.org: Words in the News”

deplatform

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/deplatform

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Danuta Danielsson hitting a Neo-Nazi with her handbag in Växjö, Sweden 1985; B&W photo of woman hitting a neo-Nazi from behind with her handbag

Calvinball

It wasn’t planned; it’s just how the revision schedule fell out; but this one is appropriate for the start of SCOTUS’s term

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/calvinball

#etymology #wordorigins #language #uspolitics #SCOTUS

Panel from 5 May 1990 Calvin and Hobbes comic strip featuring the word Calvinball; comic of a masked boy holding a soccer ball chasing a masked, flag-holding tiger around croquet wickets and numbered posts

fond

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/fond

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Stella (the dog) and Erik (the cat) are fond of one another; photo of a gray-and-white cat nuzzling a black dog

Meritocracy: a 1950s-era socialist/dystopian critique of capitalism that was popularized by satirists

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/meritocracy

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Imperial examination, Ming Dynasty, 17th/18th century; painting of a group of 17th/18th-century Chinese scholars taking an exam with one submitting his exam paper to an official

Thule / Ultima Thule

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/ultima-thule-thule

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Detail of Olaus Magnus’s 1539 Carta marina map, showing Thule (Tile) between the Hebrides, the Orkney, and the Faeroe islands, in a place where no actual island exists; Iceland is depicted on the map outside of this detailed section; colored 16th-century map depicting various islands, real and fictional, in the North Atlantic

suborn

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/suborn

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Illustration accompanying the c. 1686 broadside ballad “Perjury Punish’d with Equal Justice; or, Miles Prance”; engraving of a man in 17th-century dress in a pillory with the words, “Perjury, Perjury” displayed over his head

I probably should have saved this update for December, but here it is . . . hogmanay

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/hogmanay

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Fireworks over Edinburgh, 1 January 2011; fireworks exploding over a cityscape featuring a clock tower

“Just do it”: more proof that an odious origin doesn’t affect sales

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/just-do-it

#etymology #wordorigins #language

the whole nine yards

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/whole-nine-yards

#etymology #wordorigins #language

7 May 1921 headline from the Spartanburg Herald; newspaper headline reading “The Whole Six Yards of It”

unicorn

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/unicorn

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Domenichino, “Virgin and Unicorn,” fresco, c. 1602. The woman depicted is, ironically, Giulia Farnese (1474–1524), mistress to Pope Alexander IV (and sister of Pope Paul III); fresco of a woman sitting in a verdant setting with a white unicorn climbing onto her lap

testilying

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/testilying

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Los Angeles police detective Mark Furhman being examined by prosecutor Marcia Clark during the O. J. Simpson trial, 10 March 1995. Fuhrman was later convicted of perjury for his testimony. Photo of a man in a suit in a witness stand examining the contents of a box; a woman next to him is speaking to him

Groyper

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/groyper

#etymology #wordorigins #language #uspolitics

Stylized image of a 1940s newspaper newsroom with the words “Wordorigins.org: Words in the News”

saved by the bell

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/saved-by-the-bell

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Ingemar Johansson knocks out Floyd Patterson for the world heavyweight boxing championship on 26 June 1959. Patterson was not “saved by the bell"; B&W photo of a referee intervening between two boxers, one of whom is lying on the ring floor

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