A-Z Database
Tea only started to become popular in Britain during the latter half of the 17th century but now of course it is very much the national drink. After o...
A curate’s egg is something that is partly good but partly bad and therefore not satisfactory. The expression derives from a cartoon in Punch in 1895,...
Curfew derives from the 14th century Old French cuevre feu (modern French couvre feu) literally translated as ‘cover fire’. It was a sort of metal pla...
This expression means that inquisitiveness can often have dangerous consequences. The expression was originally ‘care killed the cat’ when the word ‘c...
A niggardly, churlish, bad tempered person dates from the late 16th century; The OED gives 1577 as the first citation. Despite many attempts to link i...
Rhyming slang for the sun, currant bun/sun, sometimes also used for son; dates from the 1930s.
This expression has nothing whatsoever to do with Indian food. In The Middle Ages, curry meant to prepare, groom and equip horses, from the Old French...
Originally, from the late 19th century, c. 1886, a curtain raiser was a short, one-act play that preceded the main play in the theatre. Now it has com...
When we say it's curtains for someone or something, it means the end, demise, and sometimes the death of someone. Curtains used in this sense dates fr...
British army slang for an easy job or task dates from the First World War c. 1915 and derives from the Hindi khuzh meaning pleasant.
British slang for drunk
see Dash/Dasher/Dashing
American slang for dance is first attested from 1942.
Cut is used here in the sense of a measure, level or a stage. In the old days, notches or cuts made at intervals along a piece of wood were used as me...
Means completed and pre-arranged with the connotation of lack of spontaneity and freshness. The expression dates from the 18th century and derives per...