Виктор Евгеньевич Никитин
Исторический английский фразеологический словарь
Wolverine State. Michigan, on account of the prairie wolves which formerly infested this region. Its people are called “Wolverines.”
Wood Green. In old days this was a glade in Hornsey Wood.
Wood Street. In this locality congregated the turners of wooden cups, dishes, and measures of olden times.
Woolly Heads. An Americanism for the Negroes of the southern states.
Woolsack. The seat reserved for the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords, being a large sack stuffed with 380wool, and covered with scarlet cloth, its object being to keep him in constant reminder of the great importance of the woollen manufacture in England.
Woolwich. Anciently described as Hylwich, “hill town.”
Worcester. Known to the Anglo-Saxons as Hwicwara ceaster, “the stronghold of the Huiccii.” The latter portion of the name, however, proves that this must have been a Roman encampment; the Huiccii were a Celtic tribe.
Worcester College. Originally known as Gloucester Hall, this Oxford foundation was in 1714 enlarged and endowed as a college by Sir Thomas Cooksey of Astley, Worcestershire, who, not desiring his name to be handed down to posterity, called it after his native county.
Work a Dead Horse. A journeyman’s phrase implying that he has to set to work on the Monday morning upon that for which he has already been paid on the previous Saturday.
World’s End. A famous house of entertainment during the reign of Charles II., so called on account of its immense distance in those days out of London. Like many other places of outdoor resort, it exists now only as a public-house.
Wormwood Street. From the bitter herbs which sprang up along the Roman Wall in ancient times.
Worsted. After a town in Norfolk of the same name where this fabric was of old the staple industry.
Writes like an Angel. Dr Johnson said of Oliver Goldsmith: “He writes like an angel and talks like a fool.” The allusion was to Angelo Vergeco, a Greek of the sixteenth century, noted for his beautiful handwriting.
Wych Street. This now vanished thoroughfare was anciently Aldwych, “Old Town,” so called because it led from St Clement Danes Church to the isolated settlement in the parish of St Giles’s-in-the-Fields, 381which in our time is known as Broad Street, Bloomsbury.
Wye. From the Welsh gwy, water.
Wyndham College. The joint foundation at Oxford of Nicholas and Dorothy Wyndham of Edge and Merefield, Somersetshire, in 1611.
X
X Ale. The original significance of the X mark on beer barrels was that the liquor had paid a ten shilling-duty. Additional X’s are simply brewers’ trade marks, denoting various degrees of strength over that of the first X.
XL’ers. See “Exellers.”
XXX’s. See “Three Exes.”
Y
Yale University. After Elihu Yale, formerly Governor of the East Indian Company’s settlement at Madras, whose princely benefactions to the Collegiate School of the State of Connecticut, founded by ten Congregational ministers at Killingworth in 1701, warranted the removal of that seat of learning to New Haven fifteen years later.
Yang-tse-Kiang. Chinese for “great river.”
Yankee. A term popularly applied at first to one born in the New England states of North America owing to the fact that Yankees, Yangkies and similar perpetrations were the nearest approaches to the word “English,” which the Indians of Massachusetts were capable of. Afterwards it came to be applied to the people of the continent generally.
Yankee Jonathan. The nickname of Jonathan Hastings, a farmer of Hastings, Mass., on account of his addiction 382to the word “Yankee,” used adjectively for anything American. Thus he would say “a Yankee good cider,” “a Yankee good horse,” etc.
Yankee State. Ohio, so called by the Kentuckians on account of its many free institutions.
Yarmouth. The port situated at the mouth of the Yare. See “Yarrow.”
Yarn. A spun-out story bears this name in allusion to the thread out of which cloth is woven.
Yarrow. From the Celtic garw, rough, rapid.
Yeddo. Japanese for “river entrance.”
Yellow Book. A French Government report, so called from its yellow cover.
Yellow Boy. Slang for a sovereign.
Yellow Jack. A yellow flag which is flown from a vessel in quarantine and from naval hospitals as a warning of yellow fever or other contagious disease on board. See “Union Jack.”
Yellow Press. By this term is meant that section of the Press which is given up to creating a scare or sensation. It has been derived from what in the United States bears the name of “Yellow-covered Literature,” consisting of trashy sensation novels, published chiefly for railway reading.
Yellow Sea. From the tinge imparted to its waters by the immense quantities of alluvial soil poured into them by the Yang-tse-Kiang River.
Yendys. The literary sobriquet of Sydney Dobell, being simply his Christian name reversed.
Yeoman’s Service. Originally that rendered to the State in time of war by volunteers of the Guilds or City Companies. The term “Yeoman” is derived from the German gemein, common, and applied in the sense of enlistment for the common good.
Yokohama. Japanese for “Cross Shore.”
383York. The Eboracum of the Romans, a Latinised rendering of the British Eurewic (pronounced Yorric), “a row of houses on the Eure,” which river is now called the Ouse.
York and Albany. An omnibus stage in Camden Town named after Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the second son of George III.
York Gate. The water gate, still standing, built for York House, of which no other vestige remains.
York Road. This long road, parallel to the Great Northern Railway at King’s Cross, owes its designation to the circumstance that the line in question was originally styled the “London and York Railway.”
Yorkshire Stingo. A public-house sign indicating that the celebrated ale of this name, due to the sting or sharpness of its taste, is sold on the premises.
York Street. In Covent Garden, after James, Duke of York, the second son of Charles I., and brother of Charles II., subsequently James II. In Westminster, from the erstwhile residence of Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, son of George III.
Young Buffs. The 31st Foot, whose uniforms were very similar to those of the Buffs, or 3rd Foot–viz. scarlet coats faced and lined with buff, and the remainder wholly of buff-coloured material. Soon after their formation in 1702 they distinguished themselves greatly in action, whereupon the General rode up, exclaiming: “Well done, old Buffs!” “But we are not the Buffs,” some of the men replied. “Then, well done, young Buffs,” was the retort, and the name stuck to them ever after.
Young Nipper. See “Nipper.”
Yucatan. From Yuca tan, “What do you say?” which was the only answer the Spaniards were able to obtain from the aborigines when they asked them the name of the country.
Yuletide. Christmastide, from the Norse juul, Christmas.
384
Z
Zadkiel. The literary sobriquet of Lieutenant Richard James Morrison, author of “The Prophetic Almanack,” after the angel of the planet Jupiter in the Jewish mythology.
Zantippe. After the wife of Socrates, whose name has become proverbial for a bad-tempered spouse.
Zanzibar. A European inversion of the Arabic Ber-ez-Zuig, the coast of the Zangis, or Negroes.
Zeeland. Expresses the Dutch for “Sea-land,” land reclaimed from the sea.
Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas. Duluth, so called from its picturesque situation at the western extremity of the Great Lakes.
Zoroastrianism. The religious system of the “Parsees” or Fire-worshippers, introduced into Persia by Zoroaster circa B.C. 500.
Zounds. A corruption of “His Wounds,” or the Five Sacred Wounds on the Body of the Redeemer. This oath was first employed by John Perrot, a natural son of Henry VIII. Queen Elizabeth was much addicted to the exclamation “His Wounds,” but the ladies of her Court softened it into “Zounds” and “Zouterkins.”
Zurich. From the Latin Thuricum, in honour of Thuricus, the son of Theodoric, who rebuilt the city after it had been destroyed by Attila.
Zuyder Zee. Properly Zuider Zee, the Dutch for “Southern Sea,” relative to the North Sea or German Ocean.
