A-Z Database
This expression describes that fluttery feeling in the pit of one’s stomach that we have all experienced at one time or another when nervous. It dates...
Slang for clitoris from about 1870. Also pugilistic slang for the chin from the early 1900s. See On the button.
To stop talking or keep quiet about something dates from the mid-19th century.
To buttonhole someone is to detain them in conversation against their will and dates from the late 19th century. Before this, it was ‘button-hold’ in...
British slang that dates from the mid-19th century for a page or hotel attendant, from the numerous jacket buttons on tunics or uniforms worn by such.
Originally, Liverpool slang for buttered bread dates from the late 19th century but, in more recent times, spread throughout the North and much of Bri...
see Bought/sold a pup
see For a song
see Bought the farm
Buzz is a busy little word. It was first coined in the 1400s as an onomatopoeic word that replicated the sound of a bee or other flying insects. By th...
A buzzkill is something or someone that stops or ends a good time, or a good situation. It originated in the US in 1990s. A modern version of a killjo...
A fashionable word or jargon. It dates from the 1960s.
see By/to/within a hair’s breadth/whisker
see Not by a long chalk
see Not by a long shot