A - Z Database
Bone has been slang for an erect penis since the mid-19th century. Boner is simply a more modern American version of the same phenomenon from the 1950...
Means utterly dry; dates from the early 19th century. From at least the 14th century, “to the bone” meant to the very extremity. The literal concept o...
Bone-idle means utterly or extremely lazy; dates from the early 19th century, probably from lazybones, which is very much older, from the late 16th ce...
A bone of contention is a problematical issue that needs to be discussed and/or resolved; dates from the mid-16th century. Bones, especially fish bone...
As everyone has experienced, bones, especially fish bones, can be problematical. Therefore, bones have been synonymous with problems or difficulties a...
To bone up is American student slang from the late 19th century, derives from Henry Bohn (1796-1884) the publisher of translations of Greek and Latin...
To have sexual intercourse dates from the 1970s and thereafter became a vogue word, which appeared liberally in the press and broadcast media. The ori...
Bonkers meaning crazy or mad is British slang from the mid-20th century. It is often used with intensifiers as in “stark raving bonkers”. Its origin i...
see Not say boo to a goose
The first known meaning of ‘boob’ is American from c. 1907 where a ‘boob’ is an awkward, stupid person or a simpleton. In this sense it is an abbrevia...
Since the First World War, a booby trap has come to mean a lethal explosive device triggered by touching or moving a seemingly harmless object. Before...
Boodle is originally American colloquial for a large quantity, especially money with the connotation of graft or illegal money. It dates from the earl...
This is American slang from the early 20th century for an isolated, remote region, the sticks or the middle of nowhere. It was a word originally picke...
It is obliquely related to the boot one wears on the feet because from the early 1600s it referred to part of a horse-drawn coach, a sort of running b...
see Re-boot