A-Z Database

A-Z Database

All A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Haberdasher

By some unknown quirk, this word has come to mean, in the UK, a dealer in sewing and dressmaking materials, while in the US it means a dealer in men’s...

Read More


Hack

There are several meanings for the word hack but in the sense of a hack writer or anyone hired to do routine work, it is an abbreviation of hackneyed....

Read More


Hackles up

see Make one’s hackles rise


Hackney, Hackneyed

see Hack


Had his or her chips

see Chips (had his or hers)


Hail Mary

A Roman Catholic prayer to Mary the mother of Christ, from the Latin Ave Maria, that dates from the 14th century. More recently, from the 1930s, was f...

Read More


Hair of the dog

Refers to a little of the alcohol that one imbibed the day before the hangover, taken as a cure for the latter. Used in this figurative sense, it deri...

Read More


Hair stand on end

see Make one’s hair stand on end


Hair’s breadth

see By/to/within a hair’s breadth


Hairy conniption

see Conniption


Hairy eyeball

see Give the hairy eyeball


Halcyon days

This phrase has been used to describe days of calm, blissful weather since the 16th century. Shakespeare used it in this way in 1591 in King Henry VI,...

Read More


Hale and hearty

This alliterative expression describes a person who is in robust and good health. Hale and hearty are words that mean the same thing, namely robust an...

Read More


Half a loaf is better than none

Seems almost too obvious to be a proverb but an old proverb it was when it first appeared in English in John Heywood Proverbs (1546), “Better is half...

Read More


Half cocked

To go off half-cocked is to initiate a course of action when not fully prepared and not conversant with all the relevant facts. This figurative use of...

Read More


back to top