A-Z Database
see Up a gum tree
Early 20th century American expression for a plain-clothes detective derives from the rubber-soled shoes they wore.
Gun-barrel straight means perfectly straight, as straight as anything could be with maximum precision. The allusion is obviously to a gun barrel, whic...
In the sense of to accelerate an automobile engine, dates from the 1930s, and may have derived from earlier WWI pilots’ jargon, ‘to give i...
Gung-ho, spelt with or without a hyphen, means enthusiastic, zealous or excessively eager. The OED precedes this definition with the word ‘unthinkingl...
Another term for a gunfighter from American westerns, both movies and books, this Americanism first appeared c. 1920 but no one knows how or why the w...
This word meaning enthusiasm or particular liking, relish or zest dates from c. 1629 and is an Italian loanword, deriving from the Latin gustus meanin...
see Guts
see Guts
Meaning spirit or courage is first attested from the late 19th century, while gutless meaning the opposite first appears c. 1915. To hate someone’s gu...
This expression is usually in the form of a very serious threat as in to have someone’s guts for garters. It is a particularly gruesome metaphor and o...
The literal meaning is eviscerated but it has become a vogue word since the 1980s for devastated or extremely disappointed, most frequently used by Br...
Derogatory term for a low-class person, literally a gatherer of refuse from the gutter, a street urchin, first attested from 1869.
By some unknown quirk, this word has come to mean, in the UK, a dealer in sewing and dressmaking materials, while in the US it means a dealer in men’s...
There are several meanings for the word hack but in the sense of a hack writer or anyone hired to do routine work, it is an abbreviation of hackneyed....