A-Z Database
A spout is a drain, also a pawnbroker’s lift or hoist by which pawned goods were taken into storage. Up the spout, means variously ruined, pawned, bey...
Originally, American slang from c.1950 that means frantic, angry or bored as in to drive someone up the wall. It is also linked to ‘climb the wall’ wh...
If something is 'up to maggots', it means that it is figuratively rotten, bad or sub-standard, and derives from the obvious allusion that anything, wh...
This expression has come to mean up to the required standard and dates in this current figurative sense from the early 19th century. It derives from t...
Up to snuff means the same thing as being up to scratch, which means that someone or something is sharp, clever or up to the required standard. The ex...
British vulgar expression of defiance or contempt; sometimes accompanied by a rude gesture, dates from the 1950s.
see Lead someone up/down the garden path
see Down/up the swannee
An arduous task involving prolonged effort, dates from the 1600s, although to give someone uphill, meaning to give them a hard time, is much newer fro...
Upper crust, a metaphor for the aristocracy or higher echelons of society dates from the early 19th century c. 1820. The notion that it derives from t...
Self-important; arrogant.
see Oops!
Disrupt something that was going well, an Americanism dates from the late 18th century.
Upshot means the conclusion or result of some course of action or discourse and derives its origin from medieval shooting contests, firstly from arche...
To over-shadow or out-perform someone dates from the turn of the late 19th/early 20th century and derives from the theatre where an actor moves upstag...