verb. TO SMASHTICATE Nay, if you be no better in the Reare then in the Van I shall make no doubt to vanquish, and vanquash you, too, before we part. Dick of Devon (c1626) The OED is boring. The definition there is “To Smash,” but that doesn’t really...

A snowclone, if you’re not familiar with the term, is “a type of cliché and phrasal template originally defined as ‘a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely...

noun. Coolness; adj. Cool and crisp By Cold, and by a kinde of Frescour (as we now-a-days speak). Bacon’s Life & D. (1627) OED says noun, but there are some wonderful ways to use it as an adjective as well. The first four letters of frescour are...

noun. Air travel by hot-air-balloon. A sort of meditation on future airgonation, supposing that it will not only be perfected, but will depose navigation. Letters, Horace Walpole (1784) One who travels by hot-air-balloon is (also used by to Walpole)...

noun. Body. He had an handsome man-case, and better it had been empty with weakness, than (as it was) ill-fitted with viciousness. The church-history of Britain, Thomas Fuller (1655) Hey there Thomas Fuller, are you eying someone’s man-case? You sly...