A-Z Database
To mean business is to be serious or earnest in intent or determined to take positive action about something or other and dates from the mid-19th cent...
When someone says that something is ‘meat and drink to me’ they mean one of two things - either something that gives them intense pleasure or somethin...
Australian/NewZealand rhyming slang for a try (in rugby), meat pie/try, dates from the late 20th/early 21st century.
An ungainly, oafish, loud, obnoxious person, an Americanism first cited from the mid-19th century.
The medium is the message has become a 20th century aphorism that describes the way that both the content of modern electronic media and the consumpti...
Mega- as a prefix (meg- before a vowel) derives from the Ancient Greek mega meaning great or large. As a prefix measuring large units its usage dates...
Melting pots have literally been around from time immemorial, but in the sense of a metaphor for a place where a variety of races, cultures, or indivi...
An honourable person of integrity; dates from the early 20th century and is of Yiddish/German origin, where mentsh means man.
Mental has come to mean mad, crazy, or angry, as in 'to go mental', which is usually used in the figurative sense, as opposed to describing a certifia...
Government or the holding of power by people selected according to merit, was coined by Michael Young, British politician and sociologist, in his essa...
see Lead someone a merry dance
see Go on one's merry way
A warning from Shakespeare not to discount behaviour that might appear mad because sometimes there may be reason or truth behind it comes from Hamlet...
see On one’s mettle
A pointless, inconclusive situation where no one can win, an American expression that dates from the late 19th century. Mexican is used in many Americ...