A-Z Database
To touch a person for money, i.e. to obtain money from them, dates from the mid-18th century. A soft touch, an easy target from which to obtain money,...
To touch base is make contact with someone and is one of many ‘base’ idioms that all derive from baseball in America where touching base is very much...
Derogatory British expression for a person of mixed race, who is partly black and dates from the late 18th century. Derives from the tar brush used by...
see Not touch with a barge pole
see Not touch with a barge pole
Originally, from the early 17th century, this expression meant doing something instantly or quickly. Dating from this same era, touch-and-go was also...
Touching wood is a ritual or superstition for either bringing good luck or warding off bad luck. Despite etymological attempts to link it to the woode...
Touched as in the sense of stirred emotionally dates from the 1300s. Touched as in slightly deranged, in the sense that someone has a touch of madness...
A simile for toughness or durability that is often applied to food (meat) as well as people, and has largely replaced the earlier expression 'tough as...
This expression was probably once a literal reference to a troublesome, stressful day at one’s office of work but it was soon adopted as a figurative...
North American version of hard luck, dates from the late 19th/early 20th century.
Vulgar version of tough luck dates from WWII.
British vulgar version of the American tough luck dates from the 1970s.
A commonplace metaphor for a difficult problem to solve or a difficult situation to overcome; dates from the early 1700s.
This familiar metaphor for physical and/or moral fortitude was coined in 1591 by Shakespeare in Richard III, Act V, Scene III, “the king’s name is a t...