A - Z Database
To luck out is an American expression that means the complete opposite of 'out of luck'. To luck out means to have a run of extremely good fortune or...
This word meaning moderately warm, both literally and figuratively, dates from the 1400s when the suffix warm was added to a now obsolete Middle Engli...
To be lumbered with something is British slang dating from the 1950s and means to be stuck with something unwanted, as in unwanted lumber, which is a...
Although the source is reputed to be slang from East Anglia in Britain, dating from the early 19th century, the main usage of the word today is Americ...
Choked with emotion, the feeling of constriction in one’s throat caused by emotional trauma, dates from the mid-19th century.
Slang for male or female genitalia, dates from the 1990s with allusion to oral sex.
An invented, humorous word for an easily transmitted but not too serious malady dates from 1954. It is attributed to the BBC (British Broadcasting Cor...
A lush is chiefly American slang for a drunkard or alcoholic and dates in this sense from the mid-19th century. It is thought to be derived from a lar...
Luvvy is a modern British colloquialism that has been popular in the theatre world since the early 1980s and was originally used by camp, affected the...
Lynching has come to mean the illegal execution of anyone by a mob and is first cited in this sense from the late 19th century in America. Although ly...
Largely obsolete sectarian slur directed at Roman Catholics. The expression originated in America c. 1850, alluding to the Roman Catholic habit of eat...
An Australian expression dating from the early 20th century denoting anger rather than mental imbalance. It presumably derives from the rather distast...
When Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland in 1865, this expression was already well known but he did immortalise it with his famous personification...
From at least the early 16th century, hares have been observed to behave in mad fashion during the month of March, which was thought to be their prime...
The actual words appear in the lyrics of Noel Coward’s song Mad Dogs and Englishmen written in 1931. Noel Coward may have been inspired by something t...