A - Z Database
This expression is now a metaphor for the final opportunity to accomplish something or retrieve a situation, and dates from the early 20th century. It...
One final, desperate attempt or defence dates from the late 17th century and derives from the military sense of a ditch or trench being the last line...
This is literally the moment before death, the last breath but can also mean the last chance or opportunity to complete something before a deadline or...
A final, often valedictory, performance or appearance; derives from the Edwin O’Connor novel The Last Hurrah (1956) which was made into a movie of the...
To get the last laugh means to come out on top at the very end, usually at someone else’s expense. The expression derives from the 15th century prover...
To be on one’s last legs is to be very near to exhaustion, usefulness or even death. The expression dates from the late 16th century.
The last straw is the final small difficulty that exasperates to the point of being unbearable. The full expression is the last straw that broke the c...
The closing and usually definitive remark on a subject dates from the 19th century and led to the expression the last word meaning the ultimate or ver...
see Cry all the way to the bank
Rhyming slang, laugh and a joke/smoke, as in I’m going outside for a laugh and a joke, when actually going outside for a smoke. Sometimes, as with mos...
‘Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone’ was coined by the American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) in her poem Solitude...
see Last laugh
Presumably, the gurgling sound made by a drain prompted this simile, which according to Eric Partridge is British forces slang from c. 1940.
see Up one’s sleeve
British slang for the mouth dates from the 1970s.