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Thanks Chris, no I didn’t know that. I really should annotate the list with the original meanings. I had started but got distracted.
I’d love to know anyone can think of other fossil words.

Jono, thanks for the list. Most of the words seem quite well-known- but only in the context of their use in certain phrases! I'd struggle to insert, casually and naturally, some of them ... but I might give it a go!

ChrisE, thanks for the 'time immemorial' information - new and interesting.

genuine misprint - 1189

Thanks for the list Jono ... I confess I set `Beyond the Pale` and `Just Deserts` in the clueing competitions - I like ambiguity in words even if some of the definitions might not be widely known. I learned about the Irish origin of the first phrase from a speech Seamus Heaney made describing how he felt like an `outsider` due to his humble upbringing

So part of me half stands apart
Beyond the pale of books and art

On the subject of ‘one fell swoop’
https://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/one-fell-swoop

Years ago my mother-in-law was telling me about a friend hers who had climbed all the Lakeland 2000-footers. I asked if it had taken him a long time.
"No" she said, quite innocently "he did them in one fell swoop"...

Jono - what a fun list! Would I get double points for HOIST and PETARD?

ChrisE - that is news to me - presumably because in those times there was no-one old enough to have any memory of that reign? Rather elegant.

M

kt17 - ‘hoist with his own petard‘, that’s Shakespeare as well I believe (Hamlet) literally blown up by your own bomb!

And thank you, PETARD is going on the list!

The news on the pandemic has caused an epidemic of "epicentre" misusages, I'm afraid....
For instance, this one on the BBC (Heaven forfend!)
Latin America is the epicentre of the pandemic, according to the WHO.