A-Z Database
Wasted is American slang for intoxicated, drugged, exhausted or even murdered, depending on the context, and dates from the 1950s. Synonyms like trash...
To watch or cover someone’s back is to guard and look after their well-being, both literally and figuratively and has evolved into ‘having someone’s b...
In its original format of ‘a watched pot never boils’, which is still the preferred American version, it is attributed to Benjamin Franklin who record...
Usually in the form of a simile, ‘like water off a duck’s back’ describes a remark or an incident that seemingly has no effect on the person so target...
Water under the bridge or past the mill meaning that something is irrevocable, in the past and therefore best forgotten, was an ancient saying before...
Frequently misquoted as “Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink” when in fact it was originally written as “Water, water, everywhere, not an...
A watershed is a significant turning point, a division, a transition or change of direction and acquired this figurative meaning from the mid-19th cen...
To wax lyrical means to be effusive and enthusiastic about something or someone and dates from the latter half of the 19th century. The word ‘wax’ use...
In the sense of great, excellent, admirable is American and dates from the mid-20th century and is thought to derive from the language of jazz. Not ma...
This famous remark is attributed to Queen Victoria in 1900 by Caroline Holland in a book entitled Notebooks of a Spinster Lady (1919). Holland, howeve...
Shakespeare’s metaphor for openness and honesty, as in not being afraid to show one’s feelings at all times, comes from Othello (c.1604) Act I, Scene...
see Sackcloth and ashes
Rhyming slang for coat, weasel and stoat/coat, dates from the 1940s.
see Get weaving
see World Wide Web