A - Z Database
Chow is both a verb and a noun and is slang for to eat or food of any kind. It dates from the mid-19th century, and was probably first used by sailors...
Australian slang for vomit dates from the late 19th century, sometimes inverted to ‘up chuck’.
British informal meaning pleased, delighted or satisfied dates from the mid-20th century, derives from Northern dialect meaning plump and therefore sa...
This familiar colloquialism for a friend has an interesting origin. Its first citation is from the late 17th century and was originally used by Oxford...
To throw up, Australian slang dates from the 1920s. There are two theories about its origin. The first is that it is an abbreviation of the naval expr...
A cinch is now informal for something that is very easy to do, or a dead certainty. The word is originally of American origin from the mid-19th centur...
Pronounced sink as in kitchen sink and not the French cinque, which of course means five. The historic confederation of the original five ports was se...
Mostly used in a disparaging sense by small-town, rural people to describe a worldly, untrustworthy, nattily dressed urban dweller. It is an Americani...
see Drop a clanger
Now a vulgar term for venereal disease but in the 16th century, it was a perfectly respectable way of describing the same thing, deriving from the Old...
Derives from the 16th century usage of clap, meaning to place or set. Thus, to clap eyes on means to set eyes on. Clap into prison or clap in irons de...
see Hell’s bells
Claptrap now means nonsense or rubbish in the sense of meaningless and empty talk but it only acquired this meaning early in the 19th century. Its ori...
A word that derives from Old French vin claret, (Modern French clairet) for light red wine dates from The Middle Ages and now generally applied to red...
A clarion call is a rallying cry or strong request for a course of action and has been used in this sense since the early 19th century. Clarion itself...