A-Z Database
To be on the back foot can mean to hang back, to be on the defensive, or to be unprepared, while to be on the front foot means the opposite. When the...
This American expression dates from the early 20th century. Its origin is baseball where pitchers would put something on the ball to make it swerve an...
Usually used to describe a machine or appliance that is not working properly or perhaps not working at all, dates from the late 19th century when prim...
Impecunious or broke, a somewhat vulgar British metaphor that dates from the mid-20th century and derives from the notion of hitting rock bottom so ha...
This expression first recorded in America in the early 19th century, means to do things briskly or rapidly. More recently, in Britain from the mid-20t...
Perfectly placed or perfectly correct, in the correct spot, an American expression that dates from the 1930s. It does not derive from button as in clo...
If something or other is on the cards, it means that it is likely to happen and this usage dates from the 18th century, from the practice of foretelli...
Today we think of a carpet exclusively as a floor covering or figuratively as a covering resembling a carpet e.g. a carpet of snow, but during the 17t...
Cusp is an old word from the 16th century meaning point or edge. To be on the cusp means to be on the point of achieving or doing something. Its ori...
Means on time, punctual or exactly accurate and derives from the dots on a clock or timepiece. The expression dates from the late 19th/early 20th cent...
This phrase originally meant 'on the wing' and probably derived from bird shooting, but in some Scottish and Northern England dialects, 'on the fly' m...
see On the back foot
see Gad
In its literal sense, 'on the hoof' was a phrase first used by cattlemen and butchers to refer to livestock, mainly cattle, before they arrived at aba...
see Horns of a dilemma