A-Z Database
see Part and parcel
see Life’s rich pageant
see All wind and piss
At one time, of course, all roads built by the Romans led to Rome as the hub or centre of their empire. Roman roads were essential for both commerce a...
If something is sewn up or all sewn up it means completed or finished and is an American colloquialism from the late 19th/early 20th century deriving...
This rather odd expression meaning, that’s all there is, it’s all over or there’s no more to be said, first appeared in America during the 1940s. Coin...
see Square/Square deal/meal etc
Meaning that which appears showy may not be valuable. It is most often attributed to Shakespeare Merchant of Venice (1596) Act II, Scene VII where Mor...
see Bells and whistles
Desribes something, e.g. a fashion, that is widespread but usually temporary or fleeting, dates from the late 18th century, from the allusion to rage...
see Not for all the tea in China
Attributed to Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), “All things come to him who will but wait.”
The source is Corinthians I, 9:22, “To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all mea...
An expression dating from the 16th century for clumsiness or lack of manual dexterity as if one had all thumbs and no fingers. Sometimes the expressio...
British slang that describes a vacuous, ineffectual person dates from the 1920s.