A-Z Database
A hollow victory is a victory that is unsatisfying or has some other unexpected or disappointing consequence that takes the edge off the win. The expr...
In the days of the old cut-throat razor during the 18th and 19th centuries, the razors were generally hollow-ground i.e. the steel was ground so that...
Like all exclamations involving the word holy, this one is American and dates from the 1920s; why cow remains obscure at best, despite attempts to ass...
American exclamation of surprise, supposedly a euphemism for holy Mary or holy Michael, dates from the early 19th century, with perhaps a dig at macke...
Not that there is much wrong with holy Moses but this appears to be a rhyming euphemism for the latter, which dates in America from the late 19th/earl...
American exclamation of surprise, with mock-religious connotations, dates from c. 1850.
Vulgar American expression of surprise or incredulity, dates from the late 19th/early 20th century.
American exclamation of surprise dates from the late 19th century with possible allusion to incense.
To have successfully completed something is a British expression that dates from the late 19th century, thought to be derived from completing military...
This is the Australian and New Zealand equivalent of home and dry, meaning to have successfully completed something. It dates from the mid-20th centur...
The origin of this well known saying remains obscure in that whoever coined it remains unknown. The first citation appears as a line from a poem that...
This was the title of a popular British song in 1934 by Fred Hillebrand and this instruction to the chauffeur of a motor car is a parody on the days o...
An indisputable fact or basic truth that usually causes some discomfort, dates from the early 18th century, but makes use of the figurative sense of h...
The meaning is obvious, although why honesty should be associated with something that has only a 24-hour duration and not something longer, is anybody...
Certainly, the idea or concept at the root of this maxim is very ancient, which has prompted some etymologists to give the source as Aesop’s Fables (c...