A-Z Database
To have a sweet tooth means to be fond of sweet-tasting foods or beverages. The OED maintains the expression is first attested from 1591 but other sou...
Sweetie pie is an American term of endearment that dates from the early 20th century. Sweetie, as the diminutive of sweet, has been around since the 1...
This expression meaning sweet things, not necessarily sweets or candies, for one’s loved one was coined by Shakespeare Hamlet Act V, Scene I, “Sweets...
A swell can mean a stylish, elegant, wealthy person of high social standing and dates in this sense from the late 18th/early 19th century. There it re...
see Sweep the board
Swimmingly means moving smoothly with ease, as a good swimmer might, and this figurative usage dates from the early 17th century. During the 19th cent...
Swing is slang for to hang, as in by the neck, and dates from the early 18th century. To take a swing at i.e. to strike or attempt to strike someone d...
Usually used in the sense of not enough room or space to swing a cat and is generally thought to be a reference to the cat o’ nine tails. Naval shipbo...
See No room to swing a cat
To swing the lead means to malinger or shirk work and this usage and meaning dates from the early 20th century. Some sources maintain the origin is na...
This is a shortened version of the fairground proverb, “what you lose on the swings, you’ll gain on the roundabouts” which first came into use during...
Derives from sweep, hence to take a swipe is to deliver a sweeping blow with one’s fist or with an oar, a baseball bat or cricket bat and dates from t...
see Turn on
British slang for a fraud or swindle dates from c. 1875. The origin is unknown but is thought to be an abbreviation of swizzle, a corruption of swindl...
A swizzle stick is special cocktail stick for stirring alcoholic drinks dates from the late 19th century. It is now the only existing swizzle, a collo...