A-Z Database
A self-opinionated, conceited person, originally an Americanism that dates from the late 19th century.
Important, influential person often used contemptuously dates from the 18th century when important people, aristocracy etc wore powdered wigs. The exp...
The bikini as a two-piece bathing costume for women only came into existence after the Second World War. The word dates from c.1946. Bikini was origin...
see Old Bill
To nuzzle affectionately and whisper endearments dates from 1816 according to the OED but that would be its first appearance in print. Billing and coo...
As in expressions like “that hurt like billy-o” or “he ran like billy-o”, billy-o has become a colloquial way of expressing a superlative or an extrem...
Biltong is South African dried/cured meat, similar to American jerky, and was once a staple food for early Dutch pioneers but now considered a treat o...
American slang for a silly, empty-headed woman dates from the 1920s and derives from the Italian bambino for baby.
see In a bind
Exclamation of surprise, of unknown origin, that dates from the 1920s and was in use before the game of the same name came into being in the 1930s.
An abbreviation of binoculars, British informal since c. 1930 but more often used to mean spectacles or glasses rather than binoculars.
British slang for a woman or girl, usually with derogatory connotations of easy virtue. The origin is Arabic bint meaning girl or daughter. British mi...
Although ‘bird’ is current British slang for a girl or woman, it is far from new. It has been used in this sense from at least the 14th century. “Bird...
Bird brain is US informal for a stupid person, a scatterbrain, a person who lacks the faculties of focus and attention, dates from the 1920s, from the...
‘The bird has flown’ is a metaphor that means someone has departed or escaped, from the obvious allusion to birds leaving the nest or coop, and is fir...