I found this on Yahoo Answers and wanted to share it:
Q: Where does the expression 'at large' originate, when referring to escaped criminals?
A: The original meaning of the word "large" included, "abundant, copious, plentiful, liberal" (from the Latin largus), so that "at large" meant "liberated, free". Today, "large" simply means "big" and all the variants of "big", but not "free". But the old idiom "at large" meaning "free" survives on.
Interesting!
.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Talking with Your Hands
Science has confirmed that talking with your hands can make you more persuasive, according to research based on over 1000 TED Talks. If you ...
-
The RoadToGrammar Text Analyzer is a free-to-use web app that will analyse the difficulty level of a piece of text. To use it, simply go t... -
One of the most popular PDF downloads on Roadtogrammar is the set of 100 Warm-up questions. It is now available as a web page with a prese... -
If you've never tried a Rebus Puzzle before, it's a play on words presented as a picture. Here are some examples: ... -
Here are 50 sets of conversation questions for ESL teachers. Each set contains 6 questions. Download the PDF here: roadtogrammar.com/co...
No comments:
Post a Comment