A-Z Database
Cut to ribbons is to destroy or defeat decisively, an Americanism dates from the early 19th century. Cut to shreds, another Americanism means the same...
This expression meaning to get to the significant point or to the heart of the matter derives from the world of films where cutting refers to the edit...
Quick in this sense means live tissue or flesh as in the biblical context of the quick and the dead, which means the living and the dead, and comes fr...
To be cut up is to be vexed, sorrowful or very upset and dates from the mid-19th century. This figurative meaning derives from the literal allusion of...
Literally of course, someone who is prepared to cut a throat, a murderous villain, dates from the 1500s. Its figurative usage as in employing ruthless...
Reduce something to the bare minimum in the sense that all extraneous matter has been cut away leaving the bare bones. Sometimes appears as cut down t...
Cute derives from acute, where through aphesis, the first letter of acute has been dropped. Cute meaning the same thing as acute dates from the mid-18...
see Bright as a button
Something or someone that cuts no ice has no credibility, influence, importance or relevance dates from America in the late 19th century before refrig...
The very latest, most up-to-date, the phrase dates from the early 1980s. See also leading edge.
A cutup, usually spelt as one word, is American English for a clown or someone who clowns around and plays the fool. It dates from the early 19th cent...