A - Z Database
Do-able and its companion, get-able or gettable, sound like modern buzzwords for tasks that can be done or objectives that can be achieved. Not a bit...
A doddle is any endeavour that can be accomplished easily without any great effort. It has been used in this way in Britain and other English-speaking...
As in dodgy or a bit dodge means suspect or doubtful. The phrase a bit dodge is quite modern, from the mid-to-latter-half of the 20th century whereas...
The word dog, of course, describes a quadruped of the genus Canis, and dates from Anglo-Saxon Old English, whereas the Germanic languages favour hund...
Rhyming slang for telephone, dog and bone/phone, dates from the mid-1940s.
An ostentatious presentation, an American expression, dates in this pejorative sense from the mid-20th century. Small-town America in the late 19th ce...
A stand-up, stiff collar, especially the reversed collar of a clergyman, dates from the mid-19th century.
A dog’s ear is the turning down of the corner of a page in a book thereby resembling an ear of a dog, which dates from the mid-1600s. Although it orig...
An American metaphor describing ruthless, uncompromising, competitiveness, dates from the mid-19th century and now part of Standard English.
A fight to the finish until someone gives up or dies dates from the 16th century. The expression was revived in WWI, usually as one word, dogfight, to...
Obstinate and determined, from the behaviour of dogs, dates from the late 18th century.
Military slang from the late 19th century for the guard house, a place of disgrace, hence to be in the dog house means to be in trouble or disgrace.
The Dog in Manger is the title of one of Aesop’s Fables written about 550 BC According to the fable, a dog in the manger is someone who begrudges othe...
Bad or sham Latin, dates from the 1600s. See also dog and cod.
British vulgar slang used to signify a superlative of anything dates from the 1940s but began to enjoy revived popularity from the 1980s. A more gente...