A-Z Database
When used figuratively it means to miss an opportunity and it took on this figurative meaning in the first decade of the 20th century. Neville Chamber...
Mission creep is a process, by which a campaign or mission’s objectives escalate over time by gradual, almost imperceptible degrees, often with undesi...
All the evidence points to British slang for an air raid siren and then army slang for the German Nebelwerfer Mortar, both from WWII. (It was never, a...
Mob is of course a common English word for an unruly crowd or rabble, the word dating from the 17th century. In the sense of organised crime or the ma...
To put the mockers on someone or something is to bring them bad luck and induce failure. It appears to have originated in Australia during the early 2...
An ancient proverb that was known to both the Greeks and Romans and probably to other ancient civilisations before them. The earliest known citation i...
British informal for cat, first attested from c. 1911, of unknown origin.
Mojo is an African American term for a lucky charm or magic spell, and has broadly come to mean magical power that gives people confidence and control...
To make or turn molehills into mountains means to exaggerate minor or trifling difficulties and the metaphor dates from the 16th century.
To treat or spoil a person with excessive gentleness and care dates from the early 19th century. The coddle part is easy to understand and means to bo...
The first appearance of this phrase in English is Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon (1932) where it describes the critical moment at the end of a bul...
see Days of the week
A derogatory American expression for someone who is unfairly wise after the event; derives from American football where the quarterback position is re...
Means that money does not stay in the pocket very long before it is spent dates according to the OED from the mid-18th century, but the thought may be...
An idiom that means money is hard to come by, as opposed to so many things that simply grow on trees in abundance, year after year. It is originally A...