A - Z Database
Homosexual, effeminate, theatrical behaviour or speech dates from the 1920s. It is thought to derive from the erstwhile practice of homosexual males o...
see Camp
Famously, from the first line of Stephen Foster’s song Camptown Races published in 1850; but originally an ironic description for the womenfolk of the...
As in an airtight, sheet-metal container for food etc, dates from 1867, chiefly American, whereas the British preference is for tin, which dates from...
see Open a can of worms
Rhetorical question that means one cannot change one’s nature. The source is the Bible Jeremiah 13:23, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leop...
see Taking candy from a baby
British slang for drunk or tipsy perhaps deriving from WWI American slang canned up, which meant the same thing. Canned as in canned or pre-recorded m...
see Cut the mustard
see Make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
Cannot understand anything about something, even if one examines every possible aspect of it, from top to bottom, or from its head to its tail. The ex...
So wrapped up in details that one cannot appreciate the whole picture is an ancient proverb first recorded in John Heywood Proverbs (1546).
A leisurely, easy pace usually of horses; dates from the early 18th century. The word is actually a shortening of ‘Canterbury Gallop’ or ‘Canterbury T...
In a humble manner, typically when requesting a favour; dates in this figurative sense from the early 1700s. Sometimes expressed as hat in hand and su...
The word captain means head, chief or leader and stems from the Latin caput/capitis meaning head. The specific military rank of a captain in the army...