A-Z Database
Alliteration is the driving force in this well-known simile for dullness or boredom, which of course stems from the torpor or stagnation of water in a...
A soft-nosed bullet that expands on impact so-called because of the bullets typically manufactured at the British military arsenal at Dum Dum near Cal...
Dumb is US colloquial for foolish or stupid, and dates from 1823. Dumb as an ox is a simile for a stupid person that dates from the late 17th/early 18...
A dumb-bell is an exercise weight, rather like the heavy, iron clappers of a church-bell but without the bell-shroud and therefore dumb because it mad...
A small, manual elevator built into large houses or hotels for removing dishes etc from rooms. Sometimes a side table or trolley for reserve plates an...
Everyone knows what a dunce is, but not everyone knows that it derives from the name of a 13th century Franciscan scholar called John Duns Scotus who...
A blockhead or stupid person, according to the OED, probably derives from the Dutch donder meaning thunder, in the sense of reverberating sounds, whic...
These days this item of clothing is usually made from denim and has a bib-like flap that covers the chest, held in place by shoulder straps. Dungaree,...
To dip or submerge a biscuit or doughnut in a hot beverage to soften it is an Americanism that dates from the 1860s, from the Pennsylvanian German dun...
Rhyming slang for kids, dustbin lids/kids, dates from the 1930s. See also God forbids.
The false courage obtained from alcohol, one of the many derogatory Dutch phrases in the English language that grew out of the Anglo-Dutch rivalry for...
see Go Dutch, Dutch courage
see My old Dutch
This expression describes an attitude or person that is staunch and unbending and dates from the 17th century when it originally referred to wool that...
Healthy, living ducks look miserable in the rain never mind dying ducks in a thunderstorm. To look like a dying duck in a thunderstorm is to look mise...