A-Z Database
Brand new' has acquired almost universal usage, where 'brand' is an intensifier for the word 'new'. But If something is new, then what has been added...
Was originally known as brandy-wine, which was the result of distilling wine. Its meaning derives from the Old Norse brand meaning fire, signifying wi...
Brass meaning money dates from the 16th century. (See also Where there’s muck, there’s brass). Because of its association as a cheap imitator of gold,...
The farthing was traditionally the smallest and lowest value coin in Britain and existed in various forms from the 13th century until 1960 when it cea...
Brass hat, top brass and big brass mean more or less the same thing. It is British slang for a high-ranking military officer. It dates from the 19th c...
see Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
The meaning of this expression as in “get down to brass tacks” is to focus on the fundamental issues or get to the basic facts. The origin, however, h...
British military slang for disgruntled and fed up dates from the late 1920s and derives, supposedly, from the chores of polishing brass fittings on sh...
see Boracic lint
This is one of the most famous phrases coined by Shakespeare when Miranda in The Tempest Act V, Scene I exclaims, “How beauteous mankind is! O brave n...
‘Bread’ meaning money is first cited as American slang from the 1930s, probably deriving from earlier American slang, dough, also meaning money that d...
‘Bread and butter’ is a basic foodstuff and as such is a metaphor for one’s livelihood. It is originally an American expression that dates from c. 182...
British rhyming slang for money, bread and honey/money. Tony Thorne’s Dictionary of Contemporary Slang dates it from the 1960s.
British slang for the stomach dates from the mid-18th century, c. 1753 according to the OED. Bread bag, bin and bread box are all variations that da...
Use disproportionate force to achieve an objective and though rarely used these days it became a popular expression from the mid-18th century onwards....