A-Z Database
Originally, from the early 17th century, this expression meant doing something instantly or quickly. Dating from this same era, touch-and-go was also...
Touching wood is a ritual or superstition for either bringing good luck or warding off bad luck. Despite etymological attempts to link it to the woode...
Touched as in the sense of stirred emotionally dates from the 1300s. Touched as in slightly deranged, in the sense that someone has a touch of madness...
The metaphorical or idiomatic usage of touchstone is to describe anything which serves to test the genuineness or value of anything; a test, a trial;...
A simile for toughness or durability that is often applied to food (meat) as well as people, and has largely replaced the earlier expression 'tough as...
This expression was probably once a literal reference to a troublesome, stressful day at one’s office of work but it was soon adopted as a figurative...
North American version of hard luck, dates from the late 19th/early 20th century.
Vulgar version of tough luck dates from WWII.
British vulgar version of the American tough luck dates from the 1970s.
A commonplace metaphor for a difficult problem to solve or a difficult situation to overcome; dates from the early 1700s.
This familiar metaphor for physical and/or moral fortitude was coined in 1591 by Shakespeare in Richard III, Act V, Scene III, “the king’s name is a t...
Colloquial expression for a young lover, usually of an older woman, dates from the 1980s.
see Like a tracer bullet
Some people misconstrue the meaning of trade wind as a wind that facilitates trade as in commerce. First attested from the mid-17th century, trade win...
see Blaze a trail