A-Z Database
Whether boats or bridges are burnt, the expression has been used figuratively only since the 19th century in the sense of staking everything on going...
The phrase midnight oil was coined by Francis Quarles in his literary work Emblems in 1635. “We spend out midday sweat, our midnight oil; we tire the...
From earliest times, sacrifices have been made to religious deities in the form of ritual burning of animals and other possessions as an act of revere...
see Split one’s sides laughing
To suddenly and effusively start to laugh, dates from the early 1700s.
There is evidence to suggest that people, and children especially, have been blowing soap bubbles for millennia. The Babylonians were making soap in 2...
A metaphor that is generally used to describe over-crowding dates from the early 20th century and derives from the obvious allusion to an over-tight g...
see Gone for a Burton
This is the last line of a poem by American poet Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) titled American Names written in 1929. It was also the title of a b...
This expression meaning to refuse to confront or acknowledge a problem has been around since the early 17th century and comes from the mistaken belief...
This expression meaning to settle one’s differences with erstwhile adversaries has been around since the 17th century and comes from the practice of N...
Bus is an abreviation of omnibus and dates from 1832. Back in the 1820s, an omnibus was public, horse-drawn transport. When motorised transport replac...
Slang for pubic hair since the mid-19th century. Bush is now Standard English for the wilds or outback, but was originally an Australian colloquialism...
Bushed meaning tired or exhausted, derives from the allusion to spending time lost in the bush or outback, which, of course, is exhausting, dates from...
During the early 19th century, the original bushwhackers in America, and then later in Australia, were pioneers who literally ‘whacked bushes’ to esta...