A-Z Database
To gild the lily means to over-embellish or to improve on something needlessly. The concept if not the actual wording is from Shakespeare King John Ac...
Gilded cages for pet birds have probably been around for a long time, but the expression 'life in a gilded cage' is a metaphor for a life of luxury bu...
A gadget, trick or device usually of a passing or worthless nature is originally American slang from the 1920s and its origin is unknown.
Rhyming slang for a homosexual, ginger beer/queer; dates from the 1930s.
To ginger up a person is to infuse mettle or spirit into them and dates from the early 19th century. It derives from the rather unpleasant practice of...
This word meaning cautiously or timidly has nothing to do with ginger up, the spice ginger or the colour ginger as in ginger-haired. The word is deriv...
Human loins are situated around the waist or hip area, where one would generally have worn a sword belt or girdle in days gone by. Thus, to gird one’s...
An assistant, female office worker who performs a wide variety of different tasks, after Man Friday from the 1719 novel by Daniel Defoe Robinson Cruso...
British colloquialism for a fool or worthless person as in ‘silly git’ dates from the mid-20th century and is a corruption of the word ‘get’ from ‘beg...
see Not give/worth a continental
see Not give a fig
see Not give a flying fuck
see Don’t give a hoot/two hoots
see Not give a monkey’s
see Not give a rat’s arse/ass