A-Z Database
Act cautiously and timidly as if reluctant to commit to a definite course of action, dates from the late 19th century, an Americanism that derives fro...
see Put on a brave face/front
Chiefly US informal for telling someone to stop talking or going on about something, dates from the early 1900s, from the obvious allusion to closing...
The figurative expression to put a damper on something, meaning to suppress an initiative or impede progress dates from the mid-19th century. A damper...
see blow the lid/cover off something
To put or hammer a nail, or sometimes the final nail, in someone’s coffin, is to bring that person close to disaster, defeat, and sometimes even death...
The charming story of putting socks into the loudspeaker tubes of old gramophones because they did not have volume controls has been exposed as folk e...
see Spoke in the wheel
See Dip / put / stick one’s toe / toes in the water
see Eggs in one basket
Often said in admonishment to someone who is behaving in a childlike manner or who needs to grow up. The source is St Paul in his letter to Corinthian...
see Fire in one’s belly
Expressions like ‘put or add flesh or meat’ to something mean to add more details in order to get a fuller, more complete understanding of something o...
South African informal for hurry up, get a move on, perhaps from the allusion to accelerator pedal in a car, dates from the 1950s.
see Put flesh on the bones of something