A-Z Database
see Knock someone’s socks off
To knock someone for a loop is to astound or amaze someone, but it can also signify a physical assault, depending on the context. This expression is A...
To knock or hit someone for six means to astound, amaze or flabbergast someone and in this figurative sense dates from the late 19th/early 20th centur...
Means to punch or to hit someone very hard. The expression is American and dates from around 1836.
Block has been slang for head since the early 1600s but this idiom dates from the late 19th/ early 20th century. See also Blockhead.
In the mid-19th century, this expression was originally connected with brawling, when fist fights could be so fierce that some protagonists would lite...
To be far better than, to surpass or defeat easily, British informal dates from the late 19th century. The only explanation forthcoming for the spots...
Knock-knock is of course the opening gambit and who’s there is the obligatory question, which is then usually answered by a pun based on someone’s nam...
To dishearten, demoralise someone to the point of capitulation and defeat, dates from the late 19th century, from the allusion of draining someone of...
Meaning pregnant is American slang from the early 19th century, possibly deriving from the earlier 16th century word knock meaning to copulate.
British and Australian slang for female breasts dates from the mid-20th century.
Slang for a brothel, dates from the mid-19th century. See also knock.
Originally a boxing term from the late 18th century, applied to a contestant who fails to beat the count, but from the 1960s used metaphorically to de...
Why is the speed of a ship measured in knots? What is a knot? A knot is the time it takes to travel one nautical mile, a distance of 1.852 km or 1.507...
Usually expressed in the negative e.g. “I don't know him/her from a bar of soap” and is thought to be of Australian origin from the early 20th century...