A - Z Database
A maker or distributor of illicit alcohol, an American expression dates from the late 19th century, so-called because flasks of alcohol were once smug...
Plunder or spoils of war, but why is it called booty? Simply because it derives from Old Norse byta meaning to deal out, exchange or share, which of c...
‘Booze’, which is slang for alcoholic liquor or to drink heavily is first cited in Middle English during the 14th century, but the spelling was ‘bouse...
Boracic lint is a surgical dressing saturated in a solution of boracic acid and glycerine that has been in use since the 19th century it is also rhymi...
see Shitless
This expression is a catchphrase that is usually shouted to people who leave doors open, usually the form of a question, “Were you born in a barn?” Th...
see Greatness
To be born into affluence or under lucky auspices. The earliest appearance in print is in Cervantes’ Don Quixote, which was completed in 1615 and tran...
The juvenile correctional institutions in the UK were named after the village of Borstal, near Rochester in Kent, where the first institution was open...
A close, intimate friend from the allusion of clasping him or her to one’s breast or bosom and, by implication, close to one’s heart; dates from the l...
The straits that separate the Black Sea from the Sea of Asov, near Istanbul, were named after the Greek for ox ford, from bos or bous meaning ox and p...
British slang from the late 19th century for cross-eyed. Derives from the slightly earlier dialectical use of boss meaning a mistake or a bungle, as i...
see Bodge/bodger
To give someone both barrels is an American informal expression dating from the 1930s meaning to give someone all the verbal criticism that can be sum...
British, originally London, slang for trouble or violence, a classic understatement of London street language which dates from the 1960s and is usuall...