A-Z Database
see In good nick
This expression dating from the 1950s is usually used to signify a calamitous end to something or other e.g. if money is lent to someone who never pay...
This expression was at first just an elaborate way of saying good night and originated in America during the First World War. During the war, so many...
This expression is usually used when one has got rid of a tiresome problem or person. Shakespeare is credited with coining good riddance in Troilus an...
A good stick is a good, dependable person and this figurative use of stick as applied to people dates from the late 17th century, just as a strong wal...
‘One’s books’ could, of course, refer to one's collection of books, but from the early 1500s, it could also mean the esteem, or lack of esteem, in whi...
Goodbye is a contraction of 'God be with ye' has been in use since the 16th century.
Mild expletives of surprise, wonderment, or incredulity that date from the early 19th century.
This description of someone who is cloyingly virtuous dates from the late 18th/early 19th century and derives from the title of a nursery tale The His...
A goody, goody is someone who is overly virtuous in a smug or trite manner and dates from the late 19th century.
This childish exclamation of delight or excitement is thought to be of American origin during the late 19th or early 20th century. Certainly, gumdrops...
The word Google is first cited as a proper noun and was the surname of Barney Google a syndicated cartoon character created by Billy Debeck that first...
A cricket term dates from c. 1904 when it was first used in an Australian newspaper to describe the bowling of the English cricketer B.J.T. Bosanquet...
To give someone a goose or to goose them is to give a playful prod in the backside with one’s finger. The expression is first attested in the late 19t...
Rhyming slang, goose and duck/fuck, dates from the late 19th century, hence sometimes used in the context of a good goose.