A-Z Database
Colloquial expressions for remote, rural locations, sticks being an old word for trees or timber dating from the mid-1700s. 'In the sticks' dates from...
see Leave something in the tank
The thick of things is the most dense or active part of something. Therefore, to be in the thick of things is to be deeply Immersed or involved in so...
In a flash, a moment, in an instant, this expression is from the New Testament, Corinthians I, 15:52,”In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the...
see Zone
Latin proverb that means in wine, truth is the Latin version of what Plato (c. 428-c. 348 BC) wrote in Greek in his Symposium. Even Plato, however, wa...
A retort that is used ironically to express that something or other is beyond one's imagination and therefore unlikely to happen, as if one had been d...
To be in or out of the hunt is a metaphor for competing or not competing actively in whatever game or contest is taking place. It originates, of cours...
To be in the loop is to be informed and is American computer jargon from the 1980s. Loop is computer slang for circuit. Thus, if one is in the circuit...
Mainstream South African English for a conference or formal gathering and derives from the same Zulu word meaning a matter for discussion. Although th...
It is called the index finger because it is the finger used in pointing. Its usage in English dates from the 1400s, from the Latin index meaning a sig...
A spell of unusually warm and hazy weather in late autumn and the expression dates from the late 18th century. If you were thinking Indian sub-contine...
Its current meaning of a hint or a slight intimation dates from the 1500s but for about two hundred years before this, it meant an undertone or a rumo...
see Add insult to injury
The Internet is an abbreviation of ‘inter-network’, which is simply a network of computers, connected to one another. These days, it is often mistaken...