idiominsider.com How we source & date Folk etymologies corrected Established 2026

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The rule of thumb story: tracing a myth to its source

The claim that "rule of thumb" recalls a wife-beating law is the most repeated false etymology in English. Followed link by link,…

Why We Publish “Origin Unknown”

The most honest phrase in our archive is also the least satisfying: origin unknown. Here is why we treat it as a…

Wartime Slang That Outlived the War

War compresses language the way it compresses everything else, minting words fast and scattering them wide. Some of the twentieth century's most…

The King James Bible’s Quiet Grip on Everyday Speech

The 1611 Bible shaped English idiom more than any other book, yet most of its famous phrases are older than 1611. Untangling…

By and Large: How Sailors Gave English So Much of Its Vocabulary

Centuries of seafaring left deep watermarks on everyday English, from 'by and large' to 'the bitter end'. But the sea also attracts…

The Phrases Shakespeare Actually Coined — and the Ones He Only Popularised

Shakespeare gets credit for half the English language, but a good deal of it was already in circulation. Sorting the minting from…