A - Z Database
Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched is one of the world’s oldest proverbs meaning do not rely on projected outcomes until they materiali...
An indeterminate distance of certainly more than a measured mile, a very long way, derives from the propensity of country people to underestimate dist...
Be prepared, be careful, early 20th century version (probably only because arse/ass has finally been allowed in print) of the very much older watch yo...
That part of a cricket field between deep mid-wicket and long on, date of origin unknown. There are two theories about its origin. The first one is th...
To describe someone as a cowboy, particularly in a business context, has become derogatory and describes reckless, unprofessional attitudes and behavi...
See Until the cows come home
Coyote ugly is an American slang expression where 'coyote' is used as an intensifier to mean 'very ugly', alluding, of course, to the American wild do...
This use of crack as in to consume the contents thereof dates from the 1500s. Shakespeare used it in Henry IV Part II, Act V, Scene III, “By the mass,...
This use of crack as in to deliver a joke briskly or with éclat dates from the 1400s.
The thin wedge of light as the day breaks or cracks was first cited as the crack of day or the crack of dawn in America during the late 19th century....
The expression that something or someone is not what they are cracked up to be sounds like modern, informal language but the surprise is that it is ne...
First class, state of the art, an American expression dates from 1893 but has links to the very much older meanings of crack, cracking or cracker (see...
see Cracked up to be and also Get cracking
A bad-tempered or eccentric person dates from the early 19th century derives from an Old English concept (pre-1150) of something that is cranked i.e....
The word itself has been in use since the 14th century when it originally meant the husks, residue or dregs, deriving from the Old French crappe meani...