Hairbrained instead of harebrained
hare·brained (hârbrnd)
adj.
Foolish; flighty: a harebrained scheme.
Usage Note: The first use of harebrained dates to 1548. The spelling hairbrained also has a long history, going back to the 1500s when hair was a variant spelling of hare. The hair variant was preserved in Scotland into the 18th century, and as a result it is impossible to tell exactly when people began writing hairbrained in the belief that the word means "having a hair-sized brain" rather than "with no more sense than a hare."
While hairbrained continues to be used and confused, it should be avoided in favor of harebrained which has been established as the correct spelling.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.
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Panty waste or pantywaist? Pantywaist never made sense to me until I found the original meaning.
1. pantywaist
A feminine, limp-wristed guy who lacks courage. May or may not be gay, but is usually assumed to be.
1. panty waste
1) The dried crusty mucus secretion left in girls and women's undergarments, usually resulting from excessive stimulation of the vaginal area. Also known as "clitty litter".
2) A sissified boy who is afraid of getting hurt and will run away from confrontation.
see also - pussy, wussy, chicken shit
HOWEVER,
(
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.p ... e=19990427)
That would be "waist" -- not "waste".
The usual meaning of the word pantywaist is 'an effeminate or weak man or boy; sissy'. Example: "I think my career has shown I'm not exactly a pantywaist" (John Wayne, in a 1971 Playboy interview).
The original sense, though, referred to an article of clothing for children. This pantywaist was an undergarment consisting of short pants and a shirt that buttoned together at the waist. By metonymy, this children's garment was applied disparagingly to an older male who would never normally wear one.
Other clothing-based metonyms are skirt as an older slang term for a woman and suit as a recent word for a business executive. An expression that parallels pantywaist in using a woman's garment to refer to weak men is the British English big girl's blouse; the Longman Idioms Dictionary cites such examples as "Go on then, try and hit me, you big girl's blouse" and "You can't sit in a pub and drink Coke, you big girl's blouse!" Some other metonyms referring disparagingly to men based on items considered inappropriate for masculine men are creampuff and the older cake-eater.
The literal use of pantywaist as an item of clothing dates from the 1920s. The 'sissy' sense is first recorded in the mid-1930s and became common rather quickly.