A-Z Database
The expression you can bank on it meaning you can trust or have confidence in something dates from the late 19th century. The allusion of course is to...
This word first appeared during the 16th century and is a combination of bank and the Latin ruptus meaning broken. The word bank derives from the Old...
Somewhat infamous Japanese battle cry used during WWII by suicidal Japanese soldiers. In fact it literally means ‘10,000 years’ and was a cry used by...
British slang for a pound sterling dates from the late 19th century. Eric Partridge maintains it comes direct from the gypsy word bar deriving in turn...
Without exception; dates from the mid-19th century and is an abbreviation of barring none, which is much older and dates from the Middle Ages.
see Know from a bar of soap
The origin of this word comes from the island of Hispaniola, modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The natives there had a method of drying mea...
The bare bones means the essential, basic facts or components, without any added frills, as in expressions like, “Give me the bare bones” or “Let’s ge...
In the 16th century, barefaced meant simply shaven or without a beard but by the 17th century, its meaning had shifted to shameless effrontery. Theref...
To vomit, throw up, US college slang dates from the late 1940s. It is thought to be echoic i.e. resembling the sound of vomiting.
This American expression is from the late 19th century and alludes to the practice of marking down and storing obsolete or end-of-range merchandise in...
To bark up the wrong tree is originally an American expression that dates from the early 19th century for any endeavour that has run off course, and...
Barking mad means extremely mad, where barking is used as an intensifier. Barking, however, is sometimes used on its own, and a person who is describe...
Since the mid-19th century, barmy is British slang describing a weak-minded idiot. Barm is an Old English word, from before 1150, for the alcoholic sc...
Rhyming slang for hair, Barnet Fair/hair. It is one of the oldest examples of rhyming slang, first recorded in 1857. By 1880, its ‘clipped’ form ‘Barn...