A-Z Database
The source of this is the Bible and although not the exact wording, something similar is mentioned in four books from both Old and New Testaments. Ecc...
Eating in the sense of something engrossing or preoccupying one, as in what’s eating you is American dating from the late 19th century. Eat as in to p...
If someone is eating out of your hand, he or she is docile, compliant and under control, rather like a tame animal. The expression dates from the earl...
To listen in on someone else’s conversation dates from the early 1600s and derives from the eaves of a house, which are the parts of the roof that ext...
This adjective derived from the noun edge dates back in its literal meaning of sharp or sharpened to the late 18th century. It then developed a figura...
This is just one of literally thousands of children’s counting-out or selection rhymes that exist in almost every language throughout the world. This...
This is a British expression from c. 1930 and means to use bad language. The effing part is of course the f word, whereas blinding means swearing in g...
see Bad egg
This expression means to look foolish or embarrassed as a result of some gaffe or other, much as one would as a careless eater of eggs, with remnants...
This egg has nothing whatsoever to do with those laid by chickens and other birds. Egg meaning to encourage or to incite is a very old word indeed, de...
An intellectual or boffin an Americanism dates from the 1950s from the association of being highbrow or high-browed, which is also American from the l...
The complete saying is, do not put all your eggs in one basket and one suspects that the origin of the expression was an egg or poultry farmer who fou...
Why is this part of the body called an 'elbow'? It derives from an old Anglo-Saxon word 'ell' meaning arm or forearm and 'bow' being the bow or bend...
This well-known expression for hard manual work dates from the early 17th century. The allusion is to the way the elbow is used in hard polishing, rub...
This catchphrase, supposedly from the Sherlock Holmes’ novels by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, does not actually appear in any of them! It only appeared in...