Constant change
According to the 11th edition of The Chambers Dictionary (2008), akimbo means ‘‘with hand on hip and elbow out’’. Such a definition explains why just about the only thing that can be akimbo is arms, and until recently the word occurred almost exclusively in the phrase with arms akimbo.
But more recently, usage seems to be changing. I have a citation of akimbo from 2001, where the author writes ‘‘we both sat with legs akimbo’’. I can sort of see that: the knees are, presumably, sticking out in the way the elbows would in the older meaning, even if the feet are not on the hips.
Whether this is what is actually meant, though, is debatable: some internet sources and the Oxford English Dictionary
suggest that it just means ‘‘with legs splayed’’.
A 2009 citation, from a different author, says, ‘‘He was unshaven, hair akimbo’’. That’s a very different image. At this point it looks as if akimbo just means ‘‘sticking out’’, which also fits with the title of a 2019 New Zealand film, Guns Akimbo, starring Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter fame. The poster for the film shows two handguns being held at head height – whether that is enough to fit with the meaning of ‘‘sticking out’’ is perhaps a matter of interpretation.
I have one last citation, again in writing from 2009, but from yet another author. ‘‘… [T]he streets were akimbo, alleys sneaking off into meandering roads’’. The meaning of ‘‘sticking out’’ no longer seems relevant, and we seem to be left with a meaning of ‘‘not neatly arranged’’, which might also fit with the guns example, although Wikipedia says that akimbo is a synonym for dual wield, using two guns, one in either hand, in combat.
The Oxford English Dictionary cites hat akimbo and curtains akimbo.
In the same Chambers dictionary, the word blond(e) is linked entirely with hair colour. This, surely, is no longer accurate.
The source of the title of Bob Dylan’s album first issued in 1966, Blonde on Blonde, is obscure, but may refer to someone playing a blonde guitar, ie one made of blond wood.
Certainly, the term blond oak has had currency for some time, at least since the mid-1970s, and probably longer. I have citations for blond brick as far back as
1987, and blond furniture at about the same period.
The collocations with wood and furniture are acknowledged in the 3rd edition of the Macquarie Dictionary from
1997. The Oxford English Dictionary adds blonde ray (a fish).
What is striking about these words is how rapidly they appear to have acquired new meanings or new collocations. Words regularly acquire new meanings, but these are not particularly common words, and their meanings change apparently extremely rapidly. Not only that, but the new uses seem to have escaped some lexicographers, people who are typically very aware of new usages.
I suspect that this illustrates an interesting phenomenon. When we hear something that does not fit with our own usage, we assume a mistake has been made, and it is only with the benefit of hindsight that we can see that what we thought was an error was really an early example of a new usage.