How long is a fortnight?

The word is used by astronomers to describe the position of three bodies that are approximately in line. For example, when the moon is full, it is in syzygy with the earth and sun, because it is on the far side of the earth from the sun.

The word salary evolved from salarium argentium, or “salt money”. Salt money was fees paid to Roman soldiers to buy the then precious commodity. In some instances, salt was indeed used as money.

The word Nightmare was named after a creature but not a horse. According to ancient superstition dating back to the eighth century in England, people thought a female monster or spirit, a so-called mare, would sit upon a sleeper’s chest. This would cause a feeling of suffocation from which the sleeper would try to free…

In its earliest use, the phrase pin money did mean the money to buy pins, the primary fasteners for clothing before buttons and zippers were invented. But by the sixteenth century, the phrase came to mean the money used for incidentals.

Despite many alternative claims, the first appearance in print links the term O.K. to a political organization that supported the reelection of President Martin Van Buren. The New York New Era of March 23, 1840, carried an article on the Democratic O.K. Club. The initials stood for Old Kinderhook, a Van Buren epithet derived from…

The phrase “to look a gift horse in the mouth” is as old as the fourth century A.D. and once had a literal meaning. Up to a certain number of years, a horse’s age can be determined by examining its teeth. To perform such an examination on a horse you’ve been given is looking a…