A-Z Database
see Turn a hair
Diddle in the sense of to cheat or swindle dates from the early 19th century and derives from Jimmy Diddler, a fictional swindler in the popular farce...
see Squat
As in 'the die is cast', meaning that a crucial and probably irreversible decision has been taken. The most obvious derivation is from the throw or ca...
This catchphrase is usually in the negative form of not to die wondering or the injunction don’t die wondering, which means to get on with whatever it...
A die-hard is a person or attitude that resists stubbornly to the last, from the literal sense of resisting until death. Thus, people had been dying h...
see Straight as a die
Some sources attribute the coining of this phrase to Muhammad Ali in 1966 when describing his repertoire of punches, as was quoted in a US newspaper a...
Dig as in to like or understand something is Black American slang from the 1930s.
To work doggedly and intensively, the expression dates from the 19th century. It can also to eat heartily, a colloquial usage from the late 19th/early...
To adopt a firm, obstinate stance, the expression dates from the 19th century.
This is a very old expression meaning to get oneself into trouble. Its source is the Bible Psalms 7:15, “He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen i...
British slang from the 1970s for an idiot or stupid and foolish person. The origin is obscure. Some say it is an abbreviation of dildo or dilly, while...
In the late 18th/early 19th century, a dilly was a stagecoach. In US slang from c. 1935, dilly was a shortening of delightful and is still used in thi...
Dilly is simply a reduplication of dally, which dates from The Middle Ages and means to loiter or spend time idly. According to the OED, dilly-dally i...