A-Z Database
Heads up is an American expression that started life as an interjection during the early 20th century meaning, pay attention. As time went by, from ar...
see Grapevine
To have the heart for something means to have the resolve and courage to persist or succeed in some task or other and this usage is very old from at l...
To have one’s heart in one’s mouth is to be extremely fearful or anxious. It is a very old expression and although Shakespeare uses it in King Lear Ac...
Describes one inner depths or core. Coined by Shakespeare but the original expression was 'heart of heart' in the singular. Although now it is used mo...
see Wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve
Usually in the form of a conversation between two people, an intimate, frank and sincere exchange, dates from the early 19th century, coined by Sir Wa...
If something is a bit Heath Robinson or is a Heath Robinson device, it usually describes an absurdly complicated contraption, especially one that has...
Originally, a nautical expression dates from the 14th century, used communually by sailors at work, pulling up anchors, hauling on sails etc. To give...
To make heavy going or heavy weather of something is to struggle or complicate matter, usually unnecessarily and dates in this figurative sense from t...
see Heavy going/weather
A vogue word that means great or awesome used mainly by adolescents since c. 2000.
Poor old Hector of Troy, once thought of as a hero of the Trojan War and who, according to Homer’s Iliad, was killed in single combat by Achilles. Fro...
To hedge one’s bets is to take protection against potential losses, dates from the latter half of the 1600s. The figurative meaning of hedge as a barr...
This is an American expression dating from the early 1920s for an unpleasant, sometimes scary, negative feeling about something or someone. Its etymol...