hokey Dinah

hokey Dinah other. an exclamation of surprise or marvel. Etymological Note: Perhaps a form of the slightly more common holy Dinah, though the Oxford English Dictionary has an entry for hokey, hoaky, defined as “a petty oath, or asservation.” Citations show a common form to be by the hokey which dates at least as far back as 1825. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

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Further reading

You Talk Like a Sausage (episode #1592) 

Do you refer to your dog or cat as “somebody”? As in: When you love somebody that much, you don’t mind if they slobber. In other words, is your pet a somebody or a something? Also, for centuries, there was little consistency in the...

Conjobble the Potboiler

Susie Dent’s murder mystery Guilty by Definition (Bookshop|Amazon) follows a lexicographer in Oxford who becomes a sleuth of a different kind, seeking the culprit in a long-unsolved killing. A lexicographer herself, Dent includes lots of obscure and...