Searching Google books, I find that what the phrase originally meant in the 17th and 18th centuries was that "A loves B just as much as B loves A "; the amount of love is balanced, so there is no love lost. In other words, unrequited love was considered to be "lost". This could be used to say they both love each other equally, or they both hate each other equally. The idiom has now come to ...
Lo comes from Middle English, where it was a short form of lok, imperative of loken, "to look" (see Etymonline, Wiktionary). To behold means "to see, to look at" and comes from Old English bihaldan, "give regard to, hold in view" (compare to behalten in contemporary German). So the literal meaning of the phrase is "Look and see!", but nowadays it is used as a set phrase and an interjection to ...
What is a more modern variant of the interjection 'Lo!" I'm looking for a single word which has the same effect but is less archaic. It is a very formal context I want to use it in that you ma...
I'm reading a book about makeup, aesthetics, the concept of beauty, etc. One of the author's interviewees said, That notion of beauty as a strength and putting yourself together well as a self-