Showing 1-10 of 24 entries tagged
“North American”
Kwanzaa
The winter festival of Kwanzaa was initiated in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, an African-American activist and scholar, but the earliest example in the OED is from […]
in your dreams!
The sarcastic interjection ‘in your (or my, her, his, etc.) dreams’ is familiar in everyday spoken English, but the earliest evidence our editors have found comes from a Usenet post in 1986. We suspect that it may have been used earlier […]
cootie
Among North American children, ‘cooties’ are an imaginary germ with which a socially undesirable person, or one of the opposite sex, is said to be infected. Our first evidence for this common playground taunt is from 1967, in a children’s novel by Beverly Cleary […]
baked Alaska
‘Alaska’, or ‘baked Alaska’, is a dessert made of ice cream topped with meringue, baked in a hot oven so that the meringue cooks before the ice cream melts. There are earlier examples of similar desserts, but […]
doorbuster
OED editors are investigating the word ‘doorbuster’, referring to a special limited-time sale which is designed to draw in customers. The earliest evidence we have found thus far […]
mochaccino
While researching the history of the word ’mochaccino’ for potential inclusion in the dictionary, OED editors were surprised that the earliest […]
party animal
When the OED added its entry for ‘party animal’, meaning ‘an exuberant reveler’, in 2005, the earliest quotation we were able to include was from 1982, but we knew that the term could almost certainly […]
gangster
A ‘gangster’ is somebody who is part of a criminal gang. Despite such gangs having been around for a very long time, this word for an individual member […]
bookmobile
Travelling branches of public libraries have existed since at least 1905, when Mary Titcomb, a Maryland librarian, used a horse-drawn wagon as a library on wheels. The coinage of the word bookmobile to refer to these mobile libraries, however, […]
ew
The exclamation ‘ew’ has become an instantly recognizable expression of disgust. Used since the late […]