A-Z Database
The origin of this British colloquial word for rubbish or nonsense is unclear but there are several theories. The most popular one is that it derives...
see Put a nail in someone’s coffin
The use of the word coin as in the coining of words and phrases dates from the 16th century. It means to create a new word or phrase just as to coin m...
This simile for expressing coldness, whether literally or figuratively, was used by Shakespeare in Henry V (1598) Act II, Scene III, “and all was as c...
Despite bogus attempts to attribute this saying to witch-hunts from centuries ago, where witch-hunters would look for tell-tale marks on witches’ brea...
see In cold blood
This oxymoronic phrase means hardly any comfort at all and first appears in early English alliterative poems during the 14th century, as “cold was his...
There have been many unproven attempts to attribute a naval origin to this expression. There is rather more evidence that the expression is a literal...
Many people say, “You know the old saying, cold hands, warm heart” only it is not that old, dating only from the early 1900s.
If you have cold hands, it is said that you have a warm heart. It simply means what it says. Many people say, “You know the old saying, cold hands, wa...
To view something in the cold light of the day is view it dispassionately and objectively without prejudice. The expression dates from the late 19th c...
To give someone the cold shoulder is turn away from them dismissively. The expression dates from the early 19th century.
This American expression from the early 20th century was first used within the context of alcohol and drug rehabilitation, when going cold turkey was...
see Cold as/colder than a witch’s tit
To make a collar is to arrest or capture and dates, according to the OED, from 1613 i.e. the first citation. The word derives from the Latin collum me...