A-Z Database
Groovy as a general term of approbation derives from black American slang of the 1930s and originally referred to music that was well liked. The term...
Shortened forms of grotesque, British slang that dates from the early 1960s. Grot is usually applied to ugly women, mercifully not used very much thes...
Dates from 1946 when it was first used to describe the epicentre or point of impact of an atomic (nuclear) explosion. More recently, it has been used...
Grounded in the sense of being denied privileges is American from the 1930s and derives from pilots who were literally grounded i.e. banned from flyin...
Groundhog Day is an expression mainly used in North America to describe an event or a situation that continually repeats itself. It derives this meani...
see Grumble and grunt
Rhyming slang for the vagina, grumble and grunt/cunt, dates from the 1930s. Also appears as 'groan and grunt' and 'growl and grunt'.
US military slang for a low-ranking infantryman. It is thought to have originated during the Vietnam War, although some sources maintain from WWII. 'G...
British gold coin first issued in 1663 when it was worth 20 shillings. It acquired a worth of 21 shillings in 1717 and was last coined in 1813. It was...
The animal commonly known as a Guinea pig is neither from Guinea, a region in West Africa, nor is it a pig. It is in fact a rodent from South America....
Gully is a fielding position in cricket located in the channel or gully between cover point and the slips.
see Up a gum tree
Early 20th century American expression for a plain-clothes detective derives from the rubber-soled shoes they wore.
In the sense of to accelerate an automobile engine, dates from the 1930s, and may have derived from earlier WWI pilots’ jargon, ‘to give i...
Gung-ho, spelt with or without a hyphen, means enthusiastic, zealous or excessively eager. The OED precedes this definition with the word ‘unthinkingl...