Scotch mist
English
WOTD – 16 March 2016
Pronunciation
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
Scotch mist (countable and uncountable, plural Scotch mists)
- (UK) A cold and penetrating mist, verging on rain.
- (UK, dialect, chiefly Lancashire and Yorkshire, idiomatic) Something that is hard to find or does not exist.
- (World War II) Something imaginary, nonexistent, or overlooked.
- 1945, Eric H Partridge, “Words Get Their Wings”, in College English[1], volume 7, number 1, page 29:
- Scotch mist, the R.A.F. term for something imaginary. […] The joke of it is that Scotch mist is as wetting as English rain.
- A drink of Scotch whisky served with ice and lemon peel.
- The perennial flowering plant Galium sylvaticum.
- Synonym: wood bedstraw
Translations
A cold penetrating mist verging on rain
Galium sylvaticum
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