A-Z Database
This expression which describes an obnoxious know-all, is originally American in origin, and dates from the mid-19th century. The expression was adopt...
British and North American slang for an obnoxious know-all, dates from the early 20th century.
Drunk, American slang dates from the 1960s.
Wonderful or sensational, British expression dates from the early 20th century.
To be suspicious or to suspect something dates from the 16th century. It also appears in Cervantes Don Quixote Part I, book IV, chapter 10, “I begin t...
Polecat is just another name for the North American skunk, an animal that gives off a fetid smell as a defence mechanism. This American expression use...
see Live on the smell/sniff of an oil/oily rag
see Wake up and smell the coffee
Smell to high heaven means to give off an extremely offensive odour rather than a heavenly one. It was coined by Shakespeare in Hamlet Act III, Scene...
A smidgin or smidgen, sometimes abbreviated to smidge, means a small amount of anything, usually food or drink. It derives from Scottish Gaelic smidea...
This is a warning from Shakespeare that a smiling, friendly disposition may disguise villainy and is from Hamlet Act I, Scene V, “one may smile and sm...
Disintegrated into small fragments dates from the late 18th/early 19th century and is thought to be of Irish or Scottish Gaelic origin. -Een is a comm...
Smoke and mirrors is a metaphor for a showy way of obscuring the true facts of a situation, a strategy of deception and cover-up. The expression is Am...
Means to smoke tobacco incessantly, often used humorously, dates from the mid-20th century.
A smoking gun is an American figure of speech for irrefutable evidence of guilt and dates from around1970. It derives from the obvious allusion that i...