Which Joe gave his name to ‘sloppy joes’? We look at five interesting sandwiches and their lexical origins.
1A plant of the genus "Syringa" (family "Oleaceae" ), especially (in gardening) the lilac.
- ‘The Zoo Lake Users Committee celebrated Arbor Week at the lake on Wednesday, with trees of the year for 2004 - the white and mountain syringa - being planted.’
- ‘Both syringas are tall deciduous trees which grow up to about 19m in height.’
- ‘Some flowers that were suggested included the dogwood, syringa, gaillardia, Washington holly, wild rose, and marguerite.’
- ‘So far, ramorum dieback has been found mostly on rhododendrons and viburnums, although it has also been identified on camellia, kalmia, pieris, syringa and yew.’
2informal A mock orange shrub.
Modern Latin, from Greek surinx, suring- ‘tube’ (with reference to the use of its stems as pipe stems).
We take a look at several popular, though confusing, punctuation marks.
From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, discover surprising and intriguing language facts from around the globe.
The definitions of ‘buddy’ and ‘bro’ in the OED have recently been revised. We explore their history and increase in popularity.