In the early 4th century, Emperor Constantine (r. 306-337) introduced a new gold coin of stable value, with 72 such coins per
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Driven by desperation in the waning months of the Second World War – and motivated by a martial code, bushido, that glorified
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Because of the unrelenting ferocity of trench warfare, the term has also come to mean a fierce, grinding contest of a non-military
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After the war, flak would also come to mean very strong criticism or abuse.
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The Spartans were well-known for their frugality, living simply with a minimum of comforts, and ‘spartan’ acquired the sense of extreme simplicity
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‘Zeppelin’ appeared in English that same year in Whitaker’s Almanack: ‘The Zeppelin Air-ship… is a cylindrical frame of aluminium in partitions, each
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Ordinarily, a gunboat was a lesser craft, mounting just a few guns. They were particularly useful in shallow waters that larger warships
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‘Hun’ became an unflattering synonym for Germans during World War I, used by Britons to emphasise their enemy’s brutality.
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‘Waterloo’ – and especially variations of the phrase ‘to meet one’s Waterloo’ – have come to signify a firm, conclusive end to
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The Roman legions needed support. By the 1st century AD, the citizen legionaries of Rome, drawn primarily from Italy, were supplemented by
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