Aphorism comes from a Greek word meaning "definition." The term was first coined by Hippocrates in a work appropriately titled Aphorisms.
While no reference can claim its content is 100% definitive and accurate, all attempts have been made to include here only information that is verifiable with the resources available. The primary sources include books, internet databases, photographic archives, etc. You probably have used a few of these expressions, idioms, proverbs, and slang phrases every day that don’t make literal sense. If you ever thought long and hard about why you say something a certain way, you could perhaps make a guess. However, some English expressions are so unusual that it is impossible to guess where on earth they originated from unless you know the history.
That is what I have tried to accomplish on the website and I hope you will enjoy these entries as much as I researched them and it is an ongoing process so check back often as more will be added as I continue to discover more. Some of the sources derived from historical events, legends, important figures, religion, and even advertisements are responsible for the origins of many expressions and colloquialisms used today. Here are the origins of some of the most interesting idioms!
Some of the most trusted resources in book form I gleaned from include:
The Oxford English Dictionary
The Historical Dictionary of American Slang
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang