A-Z Database
The concept of beauty sleep dates from the early to mid-19th century (Merriam-Webster cites 1828) when it was thought that sleep during the hours befo...
US slang for the female pudenda from as early as 1927. Beaver fur was renowned for producing the softest, smoothest felt for use in hat and glove maki...
Beck is an obsolete shortened form of beckon dating from the Middle English period (1150-1450) meaning a silent nod of the head or a hand signal. It w...
This has become a figurative expression for a life of ease and luxury. The original was coined by Christopher Marlowe c.1589 in The Passionate Shepher...
A synonym for chaos and confusion, which derives from a contraction of Bethlehem after the Bethlehem Hospital for lunatics in London, which was so nam...
A state of agitation or pre-occupation, as one would experience if one had a bee trapped under one’s headgear. The expression in this form is most pro...
Originally, this was the name given to the extremely thin, almost transparent, film of fermentation crust that sometimes appears at the top of very ol...
If something is the bee’s knees it is excellent or of the highest quality. Although many explanations of the origin have been put forward, they all re...
see Have a beef with someone
A beeline is the shortest distance between two points, as in to ‘make a beeline’ for or to a place. It is American in origin and dates in this sense f...
see Around the block
see All beer and skittles
A phrase that means a very long time ago, the flood being the deluge in the Bible from which Noah’s Ark allegedly saved both human and animal species...
This rather long-winded way of saying very quickly or with great speed dates from 1778 when it first appeared in the romantic novel Evelina by Frances...
This expression has become an issue of controversy and confusion only because so many people use it incorrectly. Increasingly, beg the question is bei...