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no crime, no punishment without a previous penal law: Legal principle meaning that one cannot be penalised for doing something that is not prohibited by law; penal law cannot be enacted retroactively. nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit: There has been no great wisdom without an element of madness: numen lumen: God our light
The original meaning was similar to "the game is afoot", but its modern meaning, like that of the phrase "crossing the Rubicon", denotes passing the point of no return on a momentous decision and entering into a risky endeavor where the outcome is left to chance. alenda lux ubi orta libertas: Let light be nourished where liberty has arisen
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An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
Translation Notes I, Vitelli, dei Romani sono belli: Go, O Vitellius, at the war sound of the Roman god: Perfectly correct Latin sentence usually reported as funny by modern Italians because the same exact words, in Italian, mean "Romans' calves are beautiful", which has a ridiculously different meaning. ibidem (ibid.) in the same place
An idiom is a phrase or expression that largely or exclusively carries a figurative or non-literal meaning, rather than making any literal sense. Categorized as formulaic language , an idiomatic expression's meaning is different from the literal meanings of each word inside it. [ 1 ]
Esperanto – je la tago de Sankta Neniamo ("on Saint Never's Day") — a loan-translation from German (see below). Finnish – sitten kun lehmät lentävät - when the cows fly. Also jos lehmällä olisi siivet, se lentäisi (if cow had wings, it would fly), implying futile speculations.
The British meaning is based on the idea that the topic will be on the table for only a short time and is there for the purpose of being discussed and voted on; the American meaning is based on the idea of leaving the topic on the table indefinitely and thereby disposing of it, i.e. killing its discussion.