A-Z Database
Easy peasy is the oldest of these slang expressions mainly used by British children and may have been around for some time before it first appeared in...
Best known as the iconic 1969 movie starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper with a cameo performance from Jack Nicholson but few realise that easy rider i...
This American expression for financial comfort and security was coined by George W. Peck in the book Uncle Ike and the Red Headed Boy (1899).
First cited in Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue published in 1785 and refers to a woman of low morals, a prostitute.
see Eat one’s gun
Although a citation of the expression 'I'm so hungry I could eat a horse behind the saddle' has been found from the late 1600s, it is no longer in cur...
Eating crow is the American equivalent of having to eat humble pie, where one has to admit one’s mistake, recant, and sometimes atone. To eat crow dat...
Act in a submissive and apologetic manner, especially after committing a transgression, dates from the early 19th century but it all starts from the m...
To eat like a horse or have an appetite like a horse, are similes that mean to have a very large appetite and date from the late 19th century, derivin...
Commit suicide by shooting oneself in the mouth with a gun, an American expression that dates from the late 20th century.
A boast that is rarely carried out, first appears in Dickens Pickwick Papers (1836), “If I knew as little of life as that, I’d eat my hat.” The OED ma...
To grieve inconsolably or to be sorely vexed, eating one’s heart out is a very ancient concept that is found in Homer’s Odyssey (c.850 BC) and the wor...
To take something back, to retract, recant or apologise for what one may have said is an expression that dates from the late 1500s.
Someone who eats you out of house and home consumes resources faster than they can be provided. Shakespeare is credited with coining this expression (...
see Eat one’s heart out