A-Z Database
see Name is mud
Drain the lizard is Australian slang for urinate and was coined by Barry Humphries’ cartoon strip Barry McKenzie in Private Eye magazine during the la...
The seemingly mild exclamation drat has an interesting origin in that since the late 16th century it was used in the form of Od rot, which was a minc...
American colloquial expression from the early 19th century means to take aim. Bead is Kentucky slang for the foresight on a rifle.
To get nowhere in some speculative effort derives from lotteries in the 16th century when blank lottery tickets were losing tickets. To draw a blank s...
To draw a line in the sand means to set a boundary or limit, beyond which, one will not go and is first attested from the 1950s. There have been some...
To draw a line under something is to close something off or end something. To draw a line between things is to separate and distinguish between them....
see Paint/draw a picture
To gain an initial advantage over an opponent; used in this figurative sense since the 17th century, with the obvious literal allusion to drawing firs...
see Draw a line under or between something
see Short straw
This is a very old expression from the 15th century meaning to assume a defensive posture. The horns referred to are not those of a bull or stag becau...
Dreadlocks are the rope-like strands of hair formed by matting and braiding. The word 'dreadlocks' is modern and is first cited in the 1960s, but why...
To the nines is first attested in 1793 in a poem by Robert Burns where it means to perfection. There is a hint of this meaning in dressed to the nines...
A term in association football, to move the ball forwards or sideways with the feet in a series of short pushes dates from the late 19th century, from...