A-Z Database
Stony, note that this is never spelt 'stoney' when referring to stony ground. Both 'stony' and 'stony broke' is British slang for penniless or ruined...
This expression first made its appearance in America meaning a police informer in the early 19th century. It is thought to derive from the horrendous...
To stop and smell the roses means to take time out to appreciate the good things in life. It is thought to be of American origin from the early 20th c...
The figurative use of this word as in 'cooking up a storm', or as Jerry Lee Lewis once sang, 'loving up a storm', is American from as long ago as the...
This figurative expression meaning to blow something out of proportion dates in this form from the early 19th century, but the concept itself is a ver...
A straight as in a straight flush in poker is attested from c.1840. To take an alcoholic drink straight or straight up, without a mixer, water, soda e...
The straight and narrow is the conventional or law-abiding route, although one would be excused for spelling it ‘strait’ and narrow because that was t...
Die is the singular of dice, but from the late 1600s, a die was also a stamp or a mechanical device for shaping metals, coins etc. It is this meaning...
Gunsmiths struggled for centuries to manufacture truly straight gun barrels, and it was only from the mid-1700s that really straight gun barrels were...
From the highest authority or from the best source, this was originally an American expression first cited from the early 20th century. In horseracing...
Straight from the shoulder means direct, forceful, honest talk or opinion and dates in this sense from the late 19th century. The origin is pugilism w...
To come straight out with something is to tell it like it is with no restraints and is an American expression that dates from 1840.
According to the OED, strait-laced is descriptive of persons “excessively rigid or scrupulous in matters of conduct; over-precise; prudish” and dates...
see Last/final straw
see Clutch/grasp at straws