A-Z Database
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...
To fluff something, as in to fluff a golf shot, or fluff a simple penalty shot in football or rugby, means to make a failed or inept attempt at someth...
A fluke in the sense of a piece of accidental luck or good fortune dates from the mid-19th century when it was specifically a colloquial expression fo...
To be flummoxed is to be confused or bewildered and dates from the early 19th century. Charles Dickens used the word in Pickwick Papers (1837). The OE...
British colloquialism for a light bet or a wager dates from c. 1870, perhaps from the expression fluttering a coin, which during the 19th century mean...
As in a 'fly person' or a person who is 'a bit fly' is an adjective that describes a knowing or artful person. According to the OED, it is slang that...
Slang from the early 19th century meaning to raise money by means of a promissory note or cheque, particularly one that is worthless. See also Kite/ki...
Improvise, adjust and correct as one goes along, an Americanism that has its origins from the early days of flying when there was little or no instrum...
A small but irritating problem that threatens to spoil everything, the source is the Bible Ecclesiastes 10:1, “Dead flies cause the ointment of the ap...
To fly off the handle is to lose self-control or give vent to uncontrollable anger. The expression is originally American and dates from the mid-19th...
A brilliant if now over-used metaphor for an undetected observer or listener, more often than not expressed as a wish to be a fly on the wall directed...