| 词汇 | drop dead |
| 词源 | drop dead; drop-dead beautiful. As an insult roughly mean- ing go to hell! this expression dates back to the early 1930s when it was originally why don’t you drop dead! The expression has its equivalents in several languages. Drop dead has achieved some respectability today in its meaning of “unusually strik- ing,” as in “That’s a drop-dead dress.” Drop dead as a curse isn’t recorded until its mention in a 1908 book about baseball, but it is probably 10 years or so older. Drop-dead beautiful, awesomely beautiful, gorgeous, etc. seems to have been coined by a magazine editor or writer about 1970. It has since been appended to gowns and a multitude of things. It was reported recently that someone involved in an argument told his opponest to drop dead and that person did so—that instant. |
| 随便看 |
英语词源词典收录了13259条英语词源词条，基本涵盖了全部常用英语词汇的起源、历史，是研究英语词汇或通过词源学英语的必备工具。