A-Z Database
see Put the hammer down
Drop-dead gorgeous means breathtakingly beautiful and first appeared in print in The Times, February 1985, in an article about Michelle Pfeiffer. Befo...
see Clutch/grasp at straws
British slang for a home, place or dwelling dates from the early 20th century. According to Eric Partridge and others, derives from the criminal pract...
To campaign vociferously for supporters, an Americanism dates from the early 19th century and derives from beating drums loudly to gain attention.
This expression dates from the 17th century, reflecting the fact that the British aristocracy had both the time and the money to spend on drinking to...
This expression owes more to rhyming than any such behaviour attributed to skunks. It is an American expression dating from the 1950s.
Rhyming slang for wife, Duchess of Fife/wife, dates from the early 20th century. See also trouble and strife and my old dutch.
To dither, prevaricate or hide away, as in aping the antics of a duck, dates from the mid-20th century. Some sources allege that it is rhyming slang f...
see Like a duck to water
To duck someone or plunge into water dates from the 14th century, as does the meaning to bend or stoop quickly. Both these meanings stem from the anti...
Ducks and drakes is an old English pastime consisting in throwing a flat stone or the like over the surface of water so that it skips as many times as...
To have one’s ducks in a row is to be prepared and organised in advance. The expression originated in America during the 1930s and the allusion either...
‘Dud’ in the sense of something that fails to work or function dates from the early 19th century, and two such items would both be ‘duds’, but ‘duds’...
‘Dude’ is American slang and now generally refers to a guy or a fellow, as in ‘a cool dude’, a term of approbation, which became popular surfer slang...