A-Z Database
See Coyote ugly
Coyote ugly is an American slang expression where 'coyote' is used as an intensifier to mean 'very ugly', alluding, of course, to the American wild do...
'Crabs in a bucket' is not so much an idiom as a metaphor that describes attitudes or behaviour of the type 'if I can't have it, then nobody can.' The...
This use of crack as in to consume the contents thereof dates from the 1500s. Shakespeare used it in Henry IV Part II, Act V, Scene III, “By the mass,...
This use of crack as in to deliver a joke briskly or with éclat dates from the 1400s.
The thin wedge of light as the day breaks or cracks was first cited as the crack of day or the crack of dawn in America during the late 19th century....
The expression that something or someone is not what they are cracked up to be sounds like modern, informal language but the surprise is that it is ne...
First class, state of the art, an American expression dates from 1893 but has links to the very much older meanings of crack, cracking or cracker (see...
see Cracked up to be and also Get cracking
A mild, derogatory term for a potentially deranged, irresponsible, or useless person. A colloquial expression first cited from c. 1860, from the obvio...
A bad-tempered or eccentric person dates from the early 19th century derives from an Old English concept (pre-1150) of something that is cranked i.e....
The word itself has been in use since the 14th century when it originally meant the husks, residue or dregs, deriving from the Old French crappe meani...
A financial crash dates form the early 19th century. Crash as in to gain uninvited entry to a party is from the 1920s. Crash as in to sleep deeply and...
British exclamation indicating sounds of collision or excitement, which Eric Partridge gives as RAF slang from c. 1939.
Crashing here is an intensifier meaning absolute or utter in this British colloquialism dating from the early 20th century.