Jacuzzi and silhouette are eponyms — that is, they derive from the names of people. An Italian immigrant to California invented the bubbly hot tub called a jacuzzi. And the word silhouette commemorates a penny-pinching treasury secretary who lasted...
Joan from Dallas, Texas, asks about to wing it, meaning to improvise or proceed with little preparation. The phrase does not come from pilots or flying by guesswork, but from the slang of 19th-century theater. It referred to understudies who learned...
Shelby calls from Rockville, Indiana, to ask about the origin of the phrase keep your powder dry. Many people surmise it derives from words uttered by Oliver Cromwell, but there’s no recorded evidence of this. The phrase first pops up in the early...