Hopeless romantic spread as a phrase and character type in literature and literary magazines in the 1920 and ‘30s and was used for individuals who easily, recklessly, or repeatedly fall in love or chase after love for love’s sake, even when it’s impractical, unwise, or unseemly. The phr...
1920s scrap ( n ) A fight. He got into a scrap with a motorcycle gang and had his nose bitten off. 1840s scrap ( v ) Cancel. We had to scrap plans to go to the beach when we saw the weather report. 1900s scrap ( v ) To fight. He's a well-intended boy but he scrap...
77: But the people from the downtown program began to infiltrate it and tried to disrupt it, by talking about, ‘Let's not have a union; let's have an association.’ That was shitless. It didn’t have any force. 2. see separate entry. ...
c.1850 Peeping Tom (London) 14 54/2: And jumping up, quite startl’d, from the grass, / She saw that monster, Mrs Bunt’s huge ass. 1857 Venus’ Miscellany (NY) 23 May n.p.: I don’t see why he should not just as well take his ass out of a hole. 1889 Dead Bird (Sydne...
Sure, kids these days probably know that banks are closed on holidays and Sundays. But in the 1920s, the slang phrasebank's closedhad nothing to do with where you got your money from. Instead, this meant "no kissing" or "no making out." So you could tell that guy you're not intere...
2001 (refs. to 1920s–30s) N. Tosches Where Dead Voices Gather (ms.) 147: Speaking of early black vocal groups, slang terms for the female genitalia or vagina, and errant pullulations in country music, mention might here be made of the Old South Quartette’s ‘Pussy Cat Rag’ of 19...
1920 Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Mar. 16/1: [T]he gambling-hell facilities of the rich. 1925 D. Hammett ‘Corkscrew’ Story Omnibus (1966) 203: You will strike now, brother? You will carry God’s war immediately into brothel and gambling hell? 1929 J.B. Booth London Town 22: The purlieus...
of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: bitch, a she dog or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore, as may be gathered from the regular Billingsgate or St. Giles’s answers, ‘I may be a whore, but can’t be a ...
1981J. EllroyBrown’s Requiem72: ‘Shake it, daddy, what else do you want to know?’ he said. Besides suffering from terminal cancer, he was suffering from terminal hipsterism. 1999Indep.Rev. 6 Aug. 5: One of the senior members of the community, someone known as a ‘decent daddy’....
1938E. Hemingwayletter 5 May in BakerSel. Letters(1981) 467: The retreat from Mons [Belgium] was chickenshit alongside of this last show. 1940inRandolph & LegmanOzark Folksongs and Folklore(1992) I 564: Her lips are as pink as a rooster’s dink, / The hair on her pussy is brown, ...