A-Z Database
see When one door closes/shuts, another door opens
see At one fell swoop
Means very old or close to death and was coined by Plutarch (46-120 AD) in Morals of the Training of Children, “An old doting fool, with one foot alre...
see All for one, one for all
see Nob
A drinking proposition that urges a final drink before the journey home. It was originally a British expression that soon took hold on both sides of t...
The intrigue here is not the meaning that kindness should be repaid with kindness but rather the origin. It is fist cited as an old English proverb fr...
Meaning a misfortune, setback, snub or insult dates from the late 19th century. David Cameron, as reported by Sky News 30 July 2012, on hearing that t...
An old proverb that is first cited in English from about the mid-1500s, and means that what is good for one person, may not be so for another. The con...
see Life’s little ironies
Intoxicated having had one drink too many is British military slang that dates from the 1920s and refers to eights pints of beer, which today seems a...
see Picture is worth more than a thousand words
An ancient proverb, attributed to Aristotle (384-322 BC) that expounds the basic principle of induction, namely that one cannot infer a general rule f...
US slang for a gambling slot machine, dates from the 1930s. The machine always wins and robs more people than it rewards.
see Trouser snake