A-Z Database
see Let there be light
The unpredictable and capricious nature of chance or fate, an Americanism popular in college circles during the 1930s. Sometimes the alliteration is e...
From the finger movements of playing a fiddle, to fiddle took on the meaning to tamper with something in an aimless, frivolous or idle manner. Fiddle...
Faddle is simply a nonsensical reduplication of fiddle and fiddle-faddle means to mess about with trivial or trifling matters and dates from the late...
American slang for fooling about or wasting time dates from the 1950s.
This is simply another nonsensical variation of fiddlesticks and dates from the late 18th century.
Since the late 15th century, a fiddlestick was undoubtedly a violin bow but from about 1600, its plural fiddlesticks became a mild interjection meanin...
To have a field day is to enjoy oneself or excel in a brilliant and exciting manner and in this figurative sense dates from the early 19th century. Th...
A fifth column is a subversive, clandestine group working from within an organisation or country with the objective of bringing about its downfall. Th...
see Not give a fig
For hundreds of years it has sometimes been customary to cover the genitalia in paintings and statues with fig leaves. One could argue that the fig le...
To 'fight fire with fire' means to respond to an attack or an adverse situation by employing the same force, tactics or method as one's opponent, in o...
To defend one’s position or interests, derives from boxing in the 18th century and became figurative of any situation by the early 20th century.
To avoid meeting or confronting someone or something dates from the late 18th/early 19th century and derives from earlier literal use of not wanting t...
Use all one’s resources and energy to achieve something dates from the early 1500s with the obvious allusion to fighting like a wild animal.