A-Z Database
see Touch base
Go or arrive at maximum speed or power, derives, of course, from steam engines where 'head' refersto the piston being driven by the steam and...
see Wrong side of the bed
British colloquialism to get going or hurry up dates from WWII and is armed services slang, especially RAF. See also get cracking.
To get wind of something is to learn of something by indirect means, through hint or suggestion. The OED cites this usage from the 15th century and su...
An Americanism dates from the 1960s, was primarily used by Black American speakers that means the start or beginning. It is derived from the phrase to...
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, shit meaning unspecified objects, materials, activities, events, stuff, things, etc. as opposed to faeces,...
see Get someone’s goat
see Do-able
see Aghast
An imitative word meaning unintelligible speech or inarticulate chatter that dates from the 16th century. It has the suffix -ish to make it sound like...
see Act the giddy goat
Variously spelt giddyup, giddyap or giddap, it is a command to make a horse go faster, representing an altered pronunciation of ‘get up’. Giddy-up is...
The English proverb is never look gift horses in the mouth or sometimes expressed as don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. It means accept a gift grac...
A talent for speaking, a way with words, dates from the late 17th century. Gab is an Old English word for vaunt or mock and by the late 17th century w...