A-Z Database
Some people misconstrue the meaning of trade wind as a wind that facilitates trade as in commerce. First attested from the mid-17th century, trade win...
see Blaze a trail
An excerpt from a forthcoming feature film is called a trailer because in the early days of the cinema there were always two movie pictures shown: the...
Intoxicated, drunk, an American slang expression that dates from the late 1920s. Trashed meaning destroyed or libelled in the press dates from the 197...
Rhyming slang for fart, treacle tart/fart, dates from the 1920s. More recently, from the late 20th century, it is also rhyming slang for sweetheart, t...
To offend or encroach on someone else’s affairs is a very old expression and dates in this sense from the late 14th century, from the obvious allusion...
see Skating/treading/walking on thin ice
This expression means to be extremely cautious in one’s actions or words, especially to avoid offending others. It started out as ‘walking on eggs’ an...
To treat or handle someone with kid gloves is to treat them with the utmost gentleness and care and the expression dates in this sense from the early...
When used today, triage denotes a highly skilled medical and surgical practice involved in the sorting of disaster or accident victims into various ca...
see In a trice
see Up one’s sleeve
Special ingenious techniques used in a profession or craft, especially those not generally known to outsiders, dates from the late 19th century.
A trifecta is a bet in horse racing that predicts the first three horses that cross the finishing line in the correct order. The word was first used i...
Although the expression is used less and less these days, it was once a popular expression when ballroom was the principal form of dancing. 'Trip the...