A-Z Database
see Point Percy at the porcelain
Sports people in particular have been punching the air as a gesture of elation and triumph since the 1960s, but the expression air punch appeared firs...
Americanism for a silly, light-headed person dates from the 1970s.
To put on airs and graces is to behave in a false, affected manner, making pretensions to high social standing, sometimes shortened to ‘put on airs’....
Now means fanciful, vague or unrealistic and in this construction was coined by Tennyson (1809-1892) in his poem Lilian (1830) in which he describes L...
Arms akimbo, means placing one’s hands on one’s hips with the elbows pointing outwards. The expression has been around from The Middle Ages. It derive...
Rhyming slang for knickers, Alan Whickers/knickers, dates from the 1970s, after Alan Whicker (1921-2013), the well-known journalist and TV personality...
This exclamation of dismay dates from the 15th century. Etymologically, it derives from a combination of the exclamation ah and the Latin lassus, whic...
An omnipresent, burdensome problem, especially as punishment for some past wrongdoing; the figurative use dates only from the 1930s. The literary allu...
The famous prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay takes its name from the pelicans that roost there. The Spanish named the island Alcatraz c.1...
This phrase dates from the 1300s and meant ‘one and all’, in the sense of both collectively and individually. The word ‘sundry’ derives from the Old E...
see Around the houses
At sea has been a common phrase for being lost or out of control since the early days of sailing, from at least The Middle Ages. In those days, naviga...
A British metaphor from the mid-19th century that denotes an easy, frivolous way of doing something, as if one was drinking beer and playing skittles...
The truth of everything will be revealed in time dates from the early 1600s from the allusion to washing dirt or stains from fabric or clothing.