A-Z Database
Originally, from the mid-18th century, a sounding board was a wooden device built into stringed instruments or erected behind pulpits, rostrums etc to...
This expression is most commonly associated with motorcars that have had their performance enhanced, usually by increasing the power output of the eng...
Sour grapes means pretending disdain for something one does not or cannot have or speaking or behaving ungraciously after a disappointment or defeat....
see Milk of human kindness
A southpaw is a lefthander, an American term that dates from c. 1880, supposedly from baseball. At a particular baseball park in Chicago, the pitcher...
South Africa’s biggest township, now a suburb of Johannesburg in its own right, the name, an acronym of SOuth WEstern Townships, was adopted in 1963.
To sow wild oats is to conduct oneself recklessly and foolishly to no good purpose. The wild oat avena fatua resembles the normal cereal oat but is in...
see Swing a cat
Spaced out is American informal for being in a stupor, as if induced by narcotic drugs, and dates from the 1960s, from the allusion to outer space, a...
Early 20th century offensive slang for a black person, which evolved out of the 19th century expression Black as the ace of spades.
The original Spam is a proprietary name for luncheon meat registered in 1937 by Hormel Foods in the US, probably derived from SPiced hAM or Shoulder P...
Since the 17th and 18th centuries, this word has enjoyed two meanings. Firstly, as in to install a spanking new kitchen, which means a fine, exception...
To put or throw a spanner in the works is to cause a disturbance, just as a spanner would if it were thrown deliberately into the workings of machiner...
South African name for the orange-fleshed cantaloupe melon derives from the Afrikaans Spaanse spek, which means ‘Spanish bacon’. It was so-called when...
see Stand out like a spare prick at a wedding