A-Z Database
see Hard yards
To act as host in introducing people, or serving food and drink, dates from the mid-1600s.
Achieve one’s purpose, dates from the early 19th century. Trick in this sense means a particular way of working or doing something.
Do-able and its companion, get-able or gettable, sound like modern buzzwords for tasks that can be done or objectives that can be achieved. Not a bit...
As a verb, do in the sense of copulate dates from the early 1600s whereas do in the sense of swindle dates from a little later during the mid-1600s. T...
A doddle is any endeavour that can be accomplished easily without any great effort. It has been used in this way in Britain and other English-speaking...
As in dodgy or a bit dodge means suspect or doubtful. The phrase a bit dodge is quite modern, from the mid-to-latter-half of the 20th century whereas...
Rhyming slang for telephone, dog and bone/phone, dates from the mid-1940s.
An ostentatious presentation, an American expression, dates in this pejorative sense from the mid-20th century. Small-town America in the late 19th ce...
A stand-up, stiff collar, especially the reversed collar of a clergyman, dates from the mid-19th century.
A fight to the finish until someone gives up or dies dates from the 16th century. The expression was revived in WWI, usually as one word, dogfight, to...
Military slang from the late 19th century for the guard house, a place of disgrace, hence to be in the dog house means to be in trouble or disgrace.
The Dog in Manger is the title of one of Aesop’s Fables written about 550 BC According to the fable, a dog in the manger is someone who begrudges othe...
Bad or sham Latin, dates from the 1600s. See also dog and cod.
A dog’s ear is the turning down of the corner of a page in a book thereby resembling an ear of a dog, which dates from the mid-1600s. Although it orig...