A-Z Database
A late night or through-the-night period of work, an Americanism that dates from the late 19th century, from the allusion to night and darkness being...
see Gravy train
This was originally an American expression dating from the early 20th century, which means an easy ride from which to make easy money. Gravy was an ea...
Originally US informal for someone who repairs machines, especially car engines, dates from the 1920s.
Grease in the sense of bribe dates from the 1520s and the expression grease someone’s palm i.e. put bribe money in their hands dates from the 1580s.
The natural phenomenon of lightning has been associated with speed since at least The Middle Ages. Lightning fast or quick as lightning is first attes...
A cheap, dingy café or restaurant, an Americanism that dates from the early 20th century from the allusion to dirty or unwashed cutlery, now almost pa...
An American exclamation of amazement or surprise dates from the late 19th century. One of its earliest citations is in an Iowa newspaper the Hawarden...
see Going great guns
An exclamation of surprise or incredulity and is almost certainly American from the mid-19th century but soon anglicised and in wide use by the end of...
see No great shakes
“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” Shakespeare’s famous lines on gre...
Greek fire was a combustible, incendiary weapon invented by the Greeks of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire around 672 AD. Many ancient civilisati...
It’s all Greek to me means that something is as incomprehensible as Greek would be to someone who did not know the language. Shakespeare uses the expr...
Gills, of course, are the organs through which fish breathe, but from the early 1600s gills also described the flesh under the jaws and ears of humans...