A-Z Database
This wonderful word dates from the 1400s; a good word to throw out occasionally, usually to a stunned or uncomprehending audience. Take care not to sl...
Originally, US slang for movie, dates from c. 1920; an abbreviation of flicker from the flickering visual appearance of early films. See also Chick fl...
A fantasy or pipedream, usage dates from the mid-17th century.
Means a piece of nonsense or twaddle designed to trick or deceive, dates from the early 16th century and is probably of old Scandinavian origin, akin...
see Blow one’s lid/top
Originally, an American term for a somersault from 1902, later in 1935 it was an electronic term for a switching circuit and finally in the 1960s it w...
American version of giving the middle finger dates from the 1960s.
British euphemism for the f word dates from the early 20th century.
This was the famous catchphrase of Muhammad Ali c. 1963.
To float someone’s boat is to excite, arouse, or turn someone on and is sometimes used in a sexual sense. This Americanism dates from the early 1980s...
Originally British army slang to sell illicitly, army stores etc, dates from the late 19th century. Now has colloquial status meaning to sell somethin...
Engage in a pointless, counter-productive pastime, a waste of time, an Americanism dates from the early 19th century from the obvious and pointless al...
Before the decimalisation of the British currency in 1971, the florin was a coin of the value of two shillings and co-existed for a while at the new v...
This expression now means odds and ends. As an experiment, try typing flotsam and jetsam using MS Word. It will underline the expression and suggest t...
British rhyming slang for cab, originally a horse-drawn cab and later motorised, derives from flounder and dab/cab. It is one of the oldest examples o...