A - Z Database
A vulgar saying that urges one never to harm or endanger one's own interests, and dates from the late 19th century. It's a more modern but less tastef...
Describes a situation where things are so far apart that unity or agreement is impossible, attributed to Rudyard Kipling The Ballad of East and West (...
New overseers or managers make drastic or comprehensive changes. This was already an old proverb when it appeared in John Heywood Proverbs in 1546. Se...
A moment or perhaps a few seconds at most, this American expression dates from the 1950s based on the allusion to the fast, hurried lifestyle of peopl...
This expression dates from the 15th century in the sense of something newly in fashion or newly invented. Shakespeare used it in this sense in several...
News as a word dates from the 15th century and was originally the plural of new, but is now regarded as a singular noun. (Newsreaders do not say here...
see His nibs
An American expression for niceness dates from the 1930s, from the allusion to apple pie, which has long been an American symbol for niceness and home...
This was British comedian and TV host, Bruce Forsyth’s catchphrase, which was established in Britain by the mid-1970s, when he hosted the BBC (Britis...
Rhyming slang for balls as in testicles, Niagara Falls/balls dates from original working class roots in the 1950s but in the late 20th/early 21st cent...
see Close, but no cigar
In the sense of to steal is British slang from the mid-19th century, whereas nicked meaning to be arrested by the police is earlier from the late 18th...
see In the nick of time
To nickel and dime someone is to hinder, annoy or harass someone with trivialities and non-essentials, obviously an American expression, which dates f...
An alternative name, dates from the 1400s and before then was originally an ‘eke name’ meaning an ‘also name’, which through elision or the sliding to...