A-Z Database

A-Z Database

All A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Fillip

see Give something a fillip


Film trailer

see Trailer (movie)


Filthy lucre

see Filthy rich


Filthy rich

This expression for describing wealthy people developed out of the expression filthy lucre. Lucre is a medieval word for money and was used by both Ch...

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Final nail in the coffin

see Put a nail in someone’s coffin


Final straw

see Last/final straw


Find a needle in a haystack

see Needle in a haystack


Find someone or something wanting

see Found wanting


Find/finding one's feet

To find one's feet means to get accustomed to a new situation, a new environment, or a new skill or pastime. It derives from the concept of an animal...

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Fine and dandy

Means first rate, splendid or excellent and is first attested in this sense from the late 19th/early 20th century. Before this, from the late 18th cen...

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Fine fettle

To be in fine fettle means to be in good order or good condition and the expression dates from the 18th century. Fettle as a verb, and now archaic, al...

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Fine words butter no parsnips

see Butter no parsnips


Finest hour

This phrase has passed into the language meaning the pinnacle of achievement. In this sense of course it was first used by Winston Churchill in a spee...

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Finger

US colloquial to inform on someone to the police, dates from the late 19th century.


Finger in every pie

Involved in everything dates from the 16th century, perhaps an allusion to the old anonymous nursery rhyme Little Jack Horner. Cervantes used the expr...

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