A-Z Database
To hedge one’s bets is to take protection against potential losses, dates from the latter half of the 1600s. The figurative meaning of hedge as a barr...
This is an American expression dating from the early 1920s for an unpleasant, sometimes scary, negative feeling about something or someone. Its etymol...
American slang for a low, contemptible person dates from the early 20th century and derives from earlier 19th century American slang, ‘heeler’, who wa...
see Hostages to fortune
Flat out, at break-neck speed, dates from the late 19th century and is a hyperbole derived from riding a horse so hard that it is hell or extreme dure...
The actual quotation is, “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” The source is William Congreve The Mou...
see Going to hell in a hand basket/handcart
see Come hell or high water
see Devil to pay
Fiercely determined, an Americanism that dates from the early 19th century. Its literal meaning is of course hell-bound and is used as a hyperbole for...
This expression has been in use since the early 19th century and variously means at great speed as in to go like hell’s bells or sometimes used as a m...
Hello originally was not a form of greeting but more an expression of surprise and dates in this sense from about 1840 and grew out of earlier cries l...
Disordered haste, a confused state of affairs dates from the late 16th century and is a rhyming jingle like harum-scarum, hurly-burly, etc. The OED sa...
see Um and ah
Domineered by a nagging wife, dates from the late 17th century, although the grooming of the farmyard cock by attentive hens, whence the expression de...