A - Z Database
To give someone the third degree is to subject them to intense interrogation and the expression is American from the late 19th century. Since The Midd...
Third man is a fielding position in cricket behind the slips and on the boundary. It was so-called because usually a slip was pushed back to this posi...
British student rhyming slang from the late 1980s for a third class university degree, Thora Hird/third, after Dame Thora Hird, the British actress (1...
This figurative expression for a particularly troublesome obstacle or problem is attributed to St Paul, Corinthians II, 12:7, “there was given to me a...
This was what the gladiators used to say in the arena in Roman times and was first recorded by Suetonius in his history Life of Claudius c. AD 70-140....
To be three sheets in the wind means to be drunk or inebriated and is first cited in this sense from 1821. The origin is nautical from the days of sai...
This word has been in existence since Anglo-Saxon times, c 900. In its original form it was ‘trascold’ or ‘trescold’ where the first syllable meant to...
see Go through the mill
Depending on the context, to go through the roof can mean to get very angry or it can mean excessively high as in prices going through the roof. Both...
To go through thick and thin means to progress through all eventualities, from the good (thick) to the lean (thin) and dates from at least the 14th ce...
see Spanner in the works
To throw, cast or fling anything to the wind is to discard it and in this general sense the expression dates from at least the 1400s. Thus, one can th...
see Take up or throw down the gauntlet
To throw in the towel means to give up or admit defeat and dates in this sense from the early 20th century. It derives from boxing where the seconds,...
Means to make or take up a challenge or demonstrate one’s willingness to join an enterprise and dates in this sense from the latter half of the 19th c...