Yes, sorry to have ignored the other slang meaning of "washed up." A person who is washed up is one who has failed completely. "Done for" is another slang phrase with the same meaning. That makes sense, but we Americans seldom say it that way. We say, "The wing panel from the missing airliner was found washed up on an island in the Indian Ocean."
The complete idiom is "storming the Bastille." The Bastille Saint-Antoine was a fortress in Paris, which was built to protect the French capital from the English in the Hundred Years War in the 14th and 15th centuries, but it was more often used by various factions of Frenchmen fighting against each other. After the war it was most often used as a prison for people who disrespected the king, or fought against him, or simply disagreed with him in public. The French Revolution began in the late 18th century, a few years after the American Revolution. The war went badly for the royal government, and eventually the Bastille was the King's only stronghold in Paris, the French capital. On July 14, 1789, the revolutionaries lost their patience and began to storm the Bastille, attacking it with the iron tools they possessed. Since it was a stone building, this was not easy. But soon members of the French army deserted and joined the revolutionaries. Since they had guns, this made it rather easy for the revolutionaries to win the battle. Initially they used the Bastille as a headquarters, but since it was famous as a prison, public sentiment demanded that it be destroyed. By November it was nothing but a ruin. So "storm the Bastille" means to fight back against an oppressor who appears too powerful to defeat, but might be beaten with the right strategy.
Indigent means more than poor. It means terribly impoverished, lacking the bare necessities of life, such as food, water and shelter. An indigent family will probably die of starvation and exposure within a short time if no one helps. Fortunately, in the modern world, people are not allowed to starve to death or freeze to death. In the USA, for example, if someone notices a person sleeping on the ground and looking very hungry, then sees him in the same place again the next day, and the day after, he will call the local government and they will send someone out to find out what's wrong, and to help. Every town has a "soup kitchen" run by the local government, or a church, or a fraternal society, where homeless people can go to get a free meal. Larger towns have facilities available to house them temporarily. In Washington DC, if the temperature drops below 15F/-10C, the police drive around looking for people who are sleeping outside, and they take them to shelters. If they refuse to go, the police simply give them warm clothes and blankets, hoping they will survive the night.
"Bastille" is also used as a metaphor, such as when someone refers to someone else's position as "that'll be your Bastille!" - i.e. an entrenched position their political opponent is taking on a single issue might be overthrown, and that victory leads to a public uprising against the rest of their positions. Or something like that.
I believe hogwash used to refer to the food and drink scraps from tables and kitchens that were served to pigs (otherwise known as hogs). So to refer to something as hogwash is a metaphor to infer that it is only fit to be served to pigs... i.e. rubbish, nonsense etc.
The word "hogwash" arose in the 15th century. It was another word for "swill": the refuse from human food that was given to the pigs. In earlier eras, it was common to let pigs eat garbage. They are scavengers by nature, so it made them happy. Most people did not realize that they were picking up parasites such as tapeworms, which were transferred to humans when they ate the meat of the pigs. The Jews understood this, and that's the reason that pork is not kosher--even though on today's farms the pigs are fed a healthy diet. Pigs were one of the earliest domesticated animals. Like dogs and goats, they walked into our villages to eat our garbage.
From Dictionary.com: verb: to utter bitter complaint or vehement denunciation (often followed by at or against): to rail at fate.
No, this is a coincidence: two words with the same sound. "Rail," meaning an iron bar, comes from French, and ultimately from Latin regula, which means "bar" or "any straight piece of wood." This is obviously also the root of our word "regular," which often means "straight." "Rail," meaning "complain" or "denounce," also comes from French, but from a different word, railler, which ultimately comes from the Latin word ragere, which means to bray (the sound a donkey makes).
Fraggle Rocker, I really do enjoy the context you add to the phrases and saying, some of us (I) take for granted, until a question like this is raised. Random association with this one lead me to a good laugh for the day. Always in the future when someone rails against.., anything, it will be accompanied by the image of an donkey.., as in an ass. To "rail" - to "complain", "argue".., and generally make an "ass" out of one's self. And no this is not an accurate definition, though at times it may be true.
"Worth," in this usage, is a preposition. "This house is worth three hundred thousand dollars." In this sentence, the preposition "worth" connects "house" with "dollars." "Dollars" is the noun that is the object of the preposition. When someone says, "I was thinking about going to the baseball game, but the weather is too hot. The game is not worth the discomfort. I'll just stay home and watch it on TV," he is saying that the value of seeing the game live is not worth the inconvenience of sitting in an outdoor stadium on a hot day.
Not so much suppress, as comparing a single voice as being drowned out by the sound of many voices in a crowd. There is so much news coverage of that issue and what others think about it, that other issues don't get covered or are drowned out...
Think of a table. If you make your move on top of the table (i.e., "above the board"), everyone can see what you're doing, meaning that you're behaving more-or-less honestly. The opposite phrase is, indeed, "under the table." It means that you're doing things that people can't see, i.e., dishonestly. Today, at least here in the USA, we usually spell it as one word: "aboveboard." It's likely that the usage evolved from card games: if you keep your hands (and your cards) on top of the table, it's difficult to cheat.
