A - Z Database
see Make one’s hackles rise
This is male-orientated American slang for sexual intercourse and/or orgasm from stones or rocks meaning testicles. The expression dates from the 1940...
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, shit meaning unspecified objects, materials, activities, events, stuff, things, etc. as opposed to faeces,...
Get a move on, hurry up, British informal dates from the 1920s. The skates concerned are roller skates.
Is to have a misunderstanding or get confused and dates from the early 20th century. It derives from the early days of the US telephone system where c...
see Watch someone’s back
To get someone’s goat is to make them annoyed or angry. The origin remains unknown but it is undisputedly American from the early 20th century. There...
see Make a clean breast of something
see Under one’s belt
see Stuff-up/stuffed
see Start/get/keep the ball rolling
see Bit between the teeth
To be dismissed or fired, with the obvious allusion to getting a kick up the backside as one leaves, dates from the late 19th century.
see Hang
This British expression meaning to get grumpy or sulky is from the late 19th /early 20th century and is thought to derive from the sort of feeling one...