A-Z Database
These variations have been common expressions since the 1400s. Pluck up is simply the Old English way of saying take up, gather up, or summon up. Shak...
It is very strange that pluck or to pluck, as both noun and verb, meaning to pull or tug, as in to pluck a chicken or pluck someone from the jaws of d...
Plum as in a plum job, meaning a post that rewards well while not requiring great effort, dates in this sense from the late 18th century and derives f...
American informal for absolutely or downright, as in ‘plumb crazy’, and dates in this sense from the mid-18th century and derives from the notion of a...
This familiar word for the artisan who fixes the piping etc in our homes has been around since The Middle Ages. Plumbum is the Latin for lead and the...
Po-faced means a humourless, disdainful or sour-faced demeanour and is British slang of unknown origin from the 1930s. The OED ventures that it might...
This was a phrase coined by literary critic and historian Thomas Rymer in Tragedies of the Last Age Considered in 1678. For Rymer, ‘poetical’ justice...
Sometimes known as creative licence where reality may be stretched for the sake of artistic expression, was first coined by Cicero (106-43 B.C.) poeta...
Point-blank range means very close, so close in fact that one is hardly likely to miss the target. The phrase dates from the 16th century and the ‘bla...
Australian slang for urinate, porcelain being the lavatory bowl and Percy the penis. It was coined by Barry Humphries for the Barry McKenzie comic str...
Openly accuse or apportion blame to someone dates from the 1500s.
A poisoned chalice is a metaphor for something that appears to be a reward, seemingly beneficial to the recipient, but in reality could be harmful or...
To jab or punch with the fist, is pugilistic slang from the late 18th century. It is also slang for sexual intercourse, which dates from the early 190...
see Stick one’s nose in
A poker face or a person who is poker faced is expressionless and gives nothing away, an Americanism dates from the late 19th century and derives from...