A-Z Database
see Make one’s hair stand on end
see By/to/within a hair’s breadth
see Conniption
see Give the hairy eyeball
This phrase has been used to describe days of calm, blissful weather since the 16th century. Shakespeare used it in this way in 1591 in King Henry VI,...
This alliterative expression describes a person who is in robust and good health. Hale and hearty are words that mean the same thing, namely robust an...
Seems almost too obvious to be a proverb but an old proverb it was when it first appeared in English in John Heywood Proverbs (1546), “Better is half...
To go off half-cocked is to initiate a course of action when not fully prepared and not conversant with all the relevant facts. This figurative use of...
see Cut
Originally, since 1721, a hallmark was the official stamp of quality and genuineness for gold and silver articles as approved by Goldsmith's Hall in L...
Halloween is a contraction of ‘All hallow even’ the eve of All Hallows Day, hallow being an obsolete, Old English word for a saint, hence the modern A...
Ham has a number meanings. Starting in chronological order, 'ham' in Old English, which means Anglo-Saxon English before 1150, meant a village or clus...
A bad or second-rate actor derives from an abbreviation of the 19th century American phrase ‘ham fatter’, denoting something that is second rate and d...
Sometimes spelt as one word, or when used as an adjective is often hyphenated, ham fisted or ham handed means clumsy and awkward. It is thought to be...
'Hamlet without the Prince' is an idiom that describes an event or occasion at which the expected principal participant is not present. It derives fro...