A-Z Database
Derives from the earlier expression ‘God is in the detail/details’ meaning that finding God, goodness or perfection in some task or project requires t...
Old English proverb from the 16th century meaning that idleness leads to sinfulness.
This saying means 'to hell with anyone who lags behind or comes last' and, of course, no one likes to lag behind or come last in any endeavour. It is...
The allusion here is to some pact with the devil, in the sense of having to pay the devil for services rendered. It is usually used in the form, “Ther...
see Devil to pay
To play devil’s advocate means to plead or argue the opposite case, not necessarily to refute it, but to test its validity. It derives from Medieval L...
A culinary term dates from the late 18th century and refers to food, especially steaks, chops, kidneys etc that have been devilled. Devilled is used f...
This was the title of one of the James Bond novels written by Ian Fleming in 1956, subsequently made into a 1971 movie starring Sean Connery, in which...
In the 16th century, anyone working on a diatribe would be working on a dissertation or a discourse of some kind. It used to be a word with no adverse...
see First dibs
Dice as a verb meaning to race or drive a car dangerously dates from the early 1950s and was originally connected with grand prix racing where drivers...
Dick has been short for Richard since about the 13th century and the reason remains obscure because the etymology of the name Richard springs from a c...
From the late 18th century, through the 19th century, there were a number of popular expressions like 'as queer as Dick's hatband', 'as tight as Dick'...
This mild slang expletive from the 16th century originally stems from Dicken or Dickon, diminutives of Dick, which besides being a common name was als...
"Dickhead is a slang and derogatory term for a stupid person. It is usually only applied to men because of 'dick' being slang for penis, and this mean...