A-Z Database
The most famous instance of this phrase is Shakespeare Hamlet Act II, Scene II, “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in f...
A share of the proceeds or profit, American expression dates from the late 19th century. Its more modern counterpart, piece of the action, dates from...
This idiom usually appears in the form of an injunction 'don't buy a pig in a poke'. Poke is an Old English word from the 13th century for a small bag...
see Happy as a pig in clover
see Happy as a pig in shit
Pig iron, is wrought iron with a high carbon content that comes straight from the furnace in irregular shapes. These shapes are called pigs because th...
To pig out is to indulge oneself and eat lustily, like a pig. It is a fairly modern expression that dates from the 1970s.
Rhyming slang for beer, pig’s ear/beer, dates from the late 19th century.
Originally, British slang for the police from the early 19th century but revived more latterly in America from the 1960s. ‘Bacon’ is a more modern Ame...
Referring to a small, storage compartment in a desk or cabinet, it dates from the late 18th century from the obvious allusion to the holes made for pi...
A piggy bank is a pig-shaped, metal, ceramic, or plastic container with a slit in the back, in which coins can be saved. Piggy banks were first attest...
Piggyback is a corruption of the earlier expression ‘pick-a-back’, which means to carry someone or something on one’s back. Therefore, it really has n...
The literal meaning of pigs in a blanket is the name for hot dogs, or small pork sausages, wrapped in pastry. It was and still is a popular American s...
see From pillar to post
British informal expression for a stupid person, dates from the 16th century derives from ‘pillicock’ an archaic word for penis.