A-Z Database
The OED gives three alternative spellings, pidgin, pigeon, and pidjin. All three refer to a form of simplified English originally spoken by Chinese do...
An empty wish or promise, an unrealistic objective, an American expression dates from the early 20th century from the union song The Preacher and the...
Extremely drunk or extremely tired from the wide, staring eyes of those afflicted, resembling the tops of pies, dates from the late 19th/early 20th ce...
North American slang for a woman as a sexual object, dates from the 1940s.
An easily accomplished task, an American expression, dates from the 1930s, from the allusion to something that is easy to eat. Although this particula...
To give someone a piece of one’s mind is to give frank, severe censure or criticism. The expression dates from latter half of the 16th century.
British, vulgar variant of piece of cake, an easy, routine task, according to Eric Partridge it is RAF slang from c.1940.
see Piece/slice of the pie
The most famous instance of this phrase is Shakespeare Hamlet Act II, Scene II, “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in f...
A share of the proceeds or profit, American expression dates from the late 19th century. Its more modern counterpart, piece of the action, dates from...
This idiom usually appears in the form of an injunction 'don't buy a pig in a poke'. Poke is an Old English word from the 13th century for a small bag...
see Happy as a pig in clover
see Happy as a pig in shit
Pig iron, is wrought iron with a high carbon content that comes straight from the furnace in irregular shapes. These shapes are called pigs because th...
To pig out is to indulge oneself and eat lustily, like a pig. It is a fairly modern expression that dates from the 1970s.