A-Z Database
As neat as a new pin dates from the 18th century and refers to the large, ornamental pins that women used to wear in their hair.
The supposition that needfulness or compulsion drives creativity is an anonymous Latin proverb from ancient Roman times and probably before. The origi...
Neck and crop means ‘completely, totally or comprehensively’ and dates from the 18th century. It was originally used to describe a comprehensive and s...
Meaning a specific location is of American origin, dating from the early 19th century when many Americans lived in woodland areas and so it meant in t...
Describes a contest so close that the winner cannot be predicted with certainty; dates from the late 18th century in relation to horseracing but figur...
To neck or to indulge in necking is to embrace and kiss intimately and is originally an American expression first recorded in the early 19th century.
Trying to find a needle in a haystack describes a well-nigh impossible task and first appears in this form during the 1700s. Before this, during the 1...
To annoy or irritate someone; this figurative use derives from the allusion of literally goading or pricking someone with a sharp needle, hence ‘give...
This maxim is not a proverb and was in fact coined by Shakespeare in Hamlet (1601) Act I, Scene III. The full quotation is, “Neither a borrower nor a...
These days, neither fish nor fowl means neither one thing nor the other and dates in this form only from the early 19th century. When it first appeare...
Usually in the form of ‘I have seen neither hide nor hair of that person for some time now’ which means there has not been the faintest trace of such...
Rhyming slang for Stella Artois a brand of Belgian beer, Nelson Mandela/Stella, dates from the early 1990s.
Unlike the expression, rack one’s brain, where wrack would be incorrect, when it comes to nerves, both ‘rack’ and ‘wrack’ are correct. Nerve-racking m...
Currently, a British dialectical/colloquial expression that means 'not liking the cold' and is mainly used in the Midlands and north of England. The w...
Nest egg as in savings or investments set aside for later use derives from the notion of placing a false egg in a chicken’s nest to induce and encoura...