A-Z Database
These particular shouts of approbation, encouragement or exultation date back to the late 17th century. According to the OED, hurrah is the literary a...
Meaning a laugh or something funny, as in an absolute hoot dates from the early 20th century and derives from hooting with laughter, which dates from...
Hooter is British slang for nose from the 1930s, from hooter being an alternative word for trumpet, from the allusion that trumpet-blowing and nose-bl...
To keep on hoping in extremis i.e. even when abandoned by hope itself, coined by St Paul in his letter to the Romans 4:18 when referring to Abraham, “...
see Not a hope in hell
The full quotation is “Hope springs eternal in the human breast” coined by Alexander Pope in An Essay on Man (1733-1734) and soon became proverbial.
Jumping up and down with rage dates from the early 1800s.
Children’s street game, various forms of which date back to Roman times. The word hopscotch dates from the 18th century but in earlier centuries it wa...
see Make a (complete) Horlicks of something
To horn in on somebody or something is to interrupt or intrude rudely and aggressively. It is American cowboy slang from the late 19th century (c.1880...
see Stir up a hornets’ nest
In popular usage, to be caught on the horns of a dilemma is to be in a position of doubt or perplexity. More correctly, it means a choice between alte...
Sexually aroused dates from the mid-19th century but horn has been slang for the penis or an erection thereof since the mid-18th century. Despite its...
This is a French culinary term that literally means ‘outside or apart from the main work’. In other words, a food dish that is apart from the main cou...
see Shut the stable door after the horse has bolted