Etymologie, Etimología, Étymologie, Etimologia, Etymology, (griech.) etymología, (lat.) etymologia, (esper.) etimologio
UK Vereinigtes Königreich Großbritannien und Nordirland, Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte, Royaume-Uni de Grande-Bretagne et d'Irlande du Nord, Regno Unito di Gran Bretagna e Irlanda del Nord, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, (esper.) Britujo
eXterne Wortlisten, (esper.) eksteruloj vortlistoj
XWHist - Word Histories

• ‘TALKAHOLIC’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 31st Mar 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
• USA, 1954: a person who talks excessively—USA, 1964: a person who is addicted to talk radio—from ‘talk’ and the suffix ‘-aholic’, forming nouns designating a person who is addicted to the thing, activity, etc., expressed by the first element
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• MORE BRITISH USES OF ‘MARMITE’
• 30th Mar 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
• ‘to spread [something or someone] like Marmite’ (1964)—‘like Marmite, a little goes a long way’ (1970)—Marmite is a savoury paste made from concentrated yeast and vegetable extract, used as a spread and for enriching soups and stews
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• A BRITISH USE OF ‘MARMITE’ (DIVISIVENESS)
• 29th Mar 2024.Reading time 15 minutes.
• 1973—someone or something that polarises opinions by provoking either strongly positive or strongly negative reactions, rather than indifference—proprietary name for a savoury paste made from yeast and vegetable extract, which is either loved or hated
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• ‘BRING YOUR OWN BOOZE’ | ‘BRING YOUR OWN BOTTLE’
• 28th Mar 2024.Reading time 29 minutes.
• indicates that a place or event is one to which guests may or should bring their own alcoholic drink—UK, 1858—USA, 1910—in early U.S. use, often referred to the prohibition of alcohol
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• ‘BRING-YOUR-OWN-BOTTLE PARTY’ | ‘BRING-A-BOTTLE PARTY’
• 27th Mar 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
• a party to which attendees are encouraged to bring their own drinks, especially alcohol—‘bring-your-own-bottle party’: USA, 1923, in the context of Prohibition—‘bring-a-bottle party’: UK, 1928
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• ‘ON ONE’S JACK JONES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 25th Mar 2024.Reading time 19 minutes.
• ‘on one’s own’—UK, 1926—‘Jack Jones’ is rhyming slang for ‘alone’, or for ‘own’ in ‘on one’s own’
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• ‘NO WUCKING FURRIES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 24th Mar 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.
• Australia, 1986—used as an assurance that all is fine, or to express one’s agreement or acquiescence—euphemistic alteration, with switching of the initial consonants, of ‘no fucking worries’
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• ‘AMBULANCE-CHASER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 23rd Mar 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
• New York City, 1896—a lawyer who seeks accident victims as clients and encourages them to sue for damages—refers to lawyers, or their agents, following ambulances taking accident victims to hospital, in order to gain access to those victims
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• ‘TO PUT ONE’S SKATES ON’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
• 22nd Mar 2024.Reading time 16 minutes.
• to hurry up (1849 in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield); the image is of a skater gliding rapidly over an ice surface—also, in early use (USA, 1886): to get drunk; the rolling gait of a drunk person is likened to the swaying motion of an ice skater
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• ‘TO BE ECONOMICAL WITH THE TRUTH’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 21st Mar 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
• Ireland, 1832—particularly associated with Lord Robert Armstrong and the ‘Spycatcher’ trial (1986)—‘economy of truth’ was used in 1796 by Edmund Burke
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• ‘TO BE ECONOMICAL WITH THE ACTUALITÉ’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 20th Mar 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
• UK, 1992—coined by Alan Clark during the Matrix Churchill trial—variant of ‘to be economical with the truth’, meaning: to deceive people by deliberately not telling them the whole truth about something
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• ‘TO MEET ONE’S WATERLOO’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 19th Mar 2024.Reading time 14 minutes.
• to be utterly defeated—alludes to the defeat of Napoléon I at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815—UK, 1832, as ‘to meet with a Waterloo’—USA, 1838, as ‘to meet one’s Waterloo’
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• ‘ETERNAL TRIANGLE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 18th Mar 2024.Reading time 14 minutes.
• UK, 1894—a love-relationship in which one member of a married couple is involved with a third party—loan translation from French ‘triangle éternel’, coined by Alexandre Dumas fils in L’Homme-Femme (1872), a pamphlet about a wronged husband’s right to take the life of his adulterous wife
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• ‘TALISWOMAN’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
• 16th Mar 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
• UK, 1856—a talisman associated with a woman—a woman likened to a talisman, especially a female sports player regarded as the leading representative of her team—alteration of ‘talisman’ with substitution of ‘woman’ for the element ‘-man’
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• ‘CAULIFLOWER EAR’ | ‘OREILLE EN CHOU-FLEUR’
• 15th Mar 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
• ‘cauliflower ear’ (USA, 1887)—French calque ‘oreille en chou-fleur’ (1913)—an ear permanently deformed as a result of injuries from repeated blows, as in boxing
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• ‘TO PLAY A BLINDER’: MEANING—AND ORIGIN?
• 14th Mar 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
• to perform outstandingly well—UK, 1902, originally in football: to play an excellent game—the image may be of a footballer whose speed and skill overpower opponents
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• ‘PADRE’S HOUR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 13th Mar 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
• UK, 1942—a weekly hour of religious instruction provided by chaplains to British-Army units—‘padre’ (literally ‘father’) is colloquially used to designate and address a male chaplain in the armed forces
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• ‘A BLIND BIT OF ——’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 12th Mar 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
• UK, 1922—used in negative constructions with a following noun to mean ‘a single ——’, ‘any ——’; the nouns most commonly used in those constructions are ‘notice’ and ‘difference’
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• ‘A BLESSING IN DISGUISE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 10th Mar 2024.Reading time 5 minutes.
• an apparent misfortune that works to the eventual good of the recipient—first half of the 18th century (from 1713 onwards) in the plural form ‘blessings in disguise’
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• ‘THE SECOND-OLDEST PROFESSION (IN THE WORLD)’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
• 9th Mar 2024.Reading time 17 minutes.
• a profession which has long been established or which is regarded as having similarities with prostitution—also sometimes used jocularly—alludes to ‘the oldest profession in the world’ (i.e., prostitution)
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• ‘THE OLDEST PROFESSION IN THE WORLD’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 8th Mar 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.
• prostitution—1889 as ‘the most ancient profession in the world’ in On the City Wall, by Rudyard Kipling—was used earlier, with positive connotations, of various professions, especially agriculture
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• ‘IN ONE’S BIRTHDAY SUIT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 7th Mar 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
• in a state of nudity—1732 as ‘in one’s birthday clothes’—refers to the naked condition in which a person is born—here, ‘birthday’ means ‘the day on which a person was born’
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• ‘MONA LISA SMILE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 6th Mar 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
• USA, 1888—an enigmatic, mysterious smile, reminiscent of that represented in the Mona Lisa, a portrait of Monna Lisa del Giocondo, painted by Leonardo da Vinci
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• ‘TO BE SKATING ON THIN ICE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 5th Mar 2024.Reading time 15 minutes.
• to court danger by behaving in an obviously risky manner that cannot be sustained for long—1841 in an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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• ‘ZIPPER PROBLEM’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 3rd Mar 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
• a man’s habit of sexual promiscuity or infidelity—refers to the zipper on the flies of a pair of trousers—USA, 1982, originally used of Members of Congress in Washington, D.C., and recorded by gossip columnist Diana McLellan
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• NOTES ON THE PHRASE ‘TO BE MORE POPULAR THAN JESUS’
• 1st Mar 2024.Reading time 14 minutes.
• notoriously used of the Beatles by John Lennon in an interview published in the Evening Standard (London, England) of 4 March 1966—but had been used earlier, for example in 1927 of Charlie Chaplin
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• ‘CACHE-SEXE’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
• 29th Feb 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
• 1923: a small garment worn to cover the genitals—hence (1926): anything intended to conceal something regarded as shameful or indecent—from French ‘cache-sexe’, from ‘cacher’ (to hide) and ‘sexe’ (sex, genitals)
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• ‘BACKSTABBING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 27th Feb 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
• UK, 1803, as an adjective—UK, 1842, as a noun—in reference to the action or practice of attacking, or acting against, someone in a treacherous or underhand manner
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• ‘FRONTSTABBING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 25th Feb 2024.Reading time 8 minutes.
• Ireland, 1914—the action or practice of attacking, or acting against, someone in a candid or open manner, as opposed to deceptively or duplicitously—coined after ‘backstabbing’ (i.e., the action or practice of attacking, or acting against, someone in a treacherous or underhand manner)
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• ‘STALKERAZZO’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 23rd Feb 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
• USA, 1995—a freelance videographer or photographer, characterised as being extremely aggressive in pursuing celebrities to video or photograph them—a blend of the nouns ‘stalker’ and ‘paparazzo’
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• ADDITIONAL NOTES ON ‘HOBSON’S CHOICE’
• 22nd Feb 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
• an early account of a forced choice from a number of horses, associated with William Hobson (died 1581), a London haberdasher—itself adapted from earlier accounts, in which the main protagonist remained unnamed
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• ‘SPIDER SENSE’: TWO DIFFERENT MEANINGS—AND TWO DIFFERENT ORIGINS
• 21st Feb 2024.Reading time 15 minutes.
• UK, 1914: an apparent ability to sense or intuit the presence of nearby spiders—USA, 1963, in reference to Spider-Man: a supernatural ability or power to perceive things beyond the normal range of human senses
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• ‘CHUMOCRACY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 19th Feb 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.
• chiefly UK politics—a culture characterised by influential networks of close friends—from ‘chum’ (a close friend) and ‘-ocracy’ (forming nouns designating forms of government or groups who exercise political or social power)
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• ‘TO FRIGHTEN SEVEN BELLS OUT OF SOMEBODY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 18th Feb 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
• New Zealand (1890) & Australia (1891)—to terrify somebody—probably modelled on the earlier phrase ‘to knock seven bells out of somebody’ (‘to give a severe beating to somebody’)
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• ‘TO KNOCK SEVEN BELLS OUT OF SOMEBODY’: MEANING—AND ORIGIN?
• 17th Feb 2024.Reading time 16 minutes.
• USA, 1826, as ‘to flog somebody like seven bells’—to give a severe beating to somebody—‘seven’ is perhaps simply an arbitrary intensifier—cf. phrases such as ‘like seven bells half-struck’ (‘with as much speed as possible’) and ‘to blow seven bells’ (‘to blow a violent gale’)
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• ‘BLACK-EYE FRIDAY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 16th Feb 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.
• UK & Ireland, 2005—the last Friday before Christmas—refers to the high number of fights caused by revellers on that day
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• ‘OLD SPANISH CUSTOM’: MEANING—AND ORIGIN?
• 16th Jan 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.
• a questionable or unorthodox practice that has long been established—1929 in U.S. film ‘Bulldog Drummond’—perhaps coined by British author Herman Cyril McNeile
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• ‘TO EMBIGGEN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 11th Jan 2024.Reading time 7 minutes.
• to make bigger or greater, to enlarge—UK, 1884, as a translation of ancient Greek ‘µe?a???e??’ as used in the Acts of the Apostles, 5:13—recoined in 1996 in the U.S. animated television series The Simpsons
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• ‘TO SIGN ON THE DOTTED LINE’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
• 9th Jan 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.
• (literally) to formally agree to something by signing an official document—(figuratively) to make a firm commitment about something—USA, 1900s, in reference to life-insurance contracts
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• ‘SNEAKY-BEAKY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 5th Jan 2024.Reading time 15 minutes.
• an intelligence operative, also an intelligence operation—UK, 1966—from ‘sneaky’ (furtive, deceitful) and ‘beaky’ (referring to an overly inquisitive person, with allusion to a prominent nose)
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• ‘POWER BEHIND THE THRONE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 1st Jan 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.
• a person who covertly exercises power by personal influence over a ruler or government without having any formal authority—ascribed to William Pitt the Elder by William Godwin in 1783
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• ‘MORE POWER TO YOUR ELBOW’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 31st Dec 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
• Ireland, 1826—an expression of approval or support for a person who is involved in an activity that the speaker regards as praiseworthy
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• ‘MORE PEOPLE KNOW TOM FOOL THAN TOM FOOL KNOWS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 29th Dec 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
• used in a situation in which someone is recognised by a person or persons whom he or she does not know or recognise—1722 in Colonel Jack, by Daniel Defoe—1656 with ‘the clown’ instead of ‘Tom Fool’
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• ‘GROCKLE’: MEANING, ORIGIN (?) AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
• 25th Dec 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
• Southwest England—a tourist—first used in The System (1964), a British film written by Peter Draper and directed by Michael Winner—of uncertain origin
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• ‘AN IRON HAND IN A VELVET GLOVE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 20th Dec 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
• 1815—inner ruthlessness and determination disguised in outward gentleness and courtesy—loan translation from French ‘une main de fer dans un gant de velours’ (1814)
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• ‘TO IRON OUT THE WRINKLES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 18th Dec 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
• USA, second half of the 19th century—to eliminate minor difficulties—the image is of removing the creases from a piece of fabric, using a hot iron
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• ‘TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 17th Dec 2023.Reading time 16 minutes.
• UK, 1748, as ‘to add insult to injuries’—to act in a way that makes matters worse in a bad situation or when somebody has already been hurt or upset
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• ‘BEATLEMANIA’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
• 15th Dec 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
• UK, 1963—with reference to the Beatles, a pop and rock group from Liverpool: the frenzied behaviour of the Beatles’ admirers; addiction to the Beatles and their characteristics
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• ‘PINKY SWEAR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 12th Dec 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
• USA—also ‘pinky promise’—a binding promise made while linking one’s little finger with that of another person—‘pinky’ designates the little finger
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• ‘TO THROW SOMEONE UNDER THE BUS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 26th Feb 2023.Reading time 31 minutes.
• to abandon or betray someone in order to protect or advance one’s own interests—originally (British politics, 1971) ‘to push someone under a bus’—derived from ‘to go under a bus’ (British politics, 1969)
• ‘FEW AND FAR BETWEEN’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
• 24th Feb 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
• scarce; infrequent; difficult to find or to come by—one early use in 1668—but popularised by the Irish author Thomas Campbell in The Pleasures of Hope (1799)
• ‘IN FULL FIG’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 23rd Feb 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
• smartly dressed—from the verb ‘fig out/up’, meaning ‘to smarten up’—this verb is probably an alteration of the verb ‘feague’, of uncertain origin, meaning ‘to make (a horse) lively’
• ‘TO RAIN PITCHFORKS (WITH THEIR POINTS DOWNWARDS)’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 22nd Feb 2023.Reading time 46 minutes.
• to rain very heavily—UK, 1820—sometimes appended to the phrase ‘to rain cats and dogs’
• ‘TO RUSH IN WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 21st Feb 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
• to embark enthusiastically on a course of action that most sensible people would avoid—coined as ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ by the English poet Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism (1711)
• ‘TO BE THANKFUL FOR SMALL MERCIES’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 20th Feb 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
• to be glad of minor benefits, especially in an otherwise unpleasant or troublesome situation—first recorded in The Heart of Midlothian (1818), by Walter Scott
• ‘DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 18th Feb 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
• a bias whereby people who have little ability in, or knowledge of, a particular task or subject tend to overestimate their capabilities—USA, 2008—refers to David Dunning and Justin Kruger, who described this bias in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1999
• ‘MAUVAIS COUCHEUR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 17th Feb 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
• a difficult, uncooperative or unsociable person—UK, 1829—from French ‘mauvais coucheur’, literally ‘bad bedfellow’, with original allusion to a person whom a traveller had to share a bed with when stopping over at an inn
• ‘TO RAIN CATS AND DOGS AND TO HAIL CABS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 16th Feb 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.
• UK, 1856—jocular extension of ‘to rain cats and dogs’ (i.e., ‘to rain very hard’)—puns on the verb ‘hail’ (i.e., ‘to pour down like hail’) and the verb ‘hail’ (i.e., ‘to call out (a cab)’)
• ‘BLOODY CAESAR’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 5th Feb 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
• a drink consisting of vodka and Clamato juice—Canada, 1969—coined after ‘Bloody Mary’—this drink is said to have been invented by bartender Walter Chell
• ‘CRUYFF TURN’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 4th Feb 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.
• in soccer: a manoeuvre used by one player to evade another—UK, 1980s—refers to Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff, who first brought this manoeuvre to public attention by performing it in 1974
• ‘THE BALLOON GOES UP’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 3rd Feb 2023.Reading time 21 minutes.
• the action, excitement or trouble starts—USA, late 19th century—originally alluded to the release of a balloon to mark an event

• ‘LEAR WITHOUT THE KING’ | ‘HENRY V WITHOUT THE KING’
• 31st Jan 2023.Reading time 17 minutes.
• an event or occasion at which the expected principal participant is not present—coined after ‘Hamlet without the Prince’—‘Lear without the King’ 1904—‘Henry V without the King’ 1964
• NOTES ON ‘WAITING FOR GODOT WITHOUT GODOT’
• 30th Jan 2023.Reading time 4 minutes.
• UK, 1999—refers to ‘Waiting for Godot’, a play by Samuel Beckett—absurd phrase, since the titular character never appears in the play—always occurs in association with the phrase ‘Hamlet without the Prince’
• NOTES ON ‘WAVE’ (I.E., CROWD MOTION)
• 29th Jan 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
• USA, 1981—said to have been invented by cheerleader ‘Krazy George’—popularised worldwide during the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, as a translation of Spanish ‘ola’—hence the British phrase ‘Mexican wave’ (1986)
• THE BIBLICAL ORIGIN OF ‘TO GO THE EXTRA MILE’
• 27th Jan 2023.Reading time 18 minutes.
• meaning: to try especially hard to achieve something or do it well—originally ‘to go the second mile’—alludes to the gospel of Matthew, 5:41: “And whosoeuer shall compell thee to goe a mile, goe with him twaine”
• ‘MEXICAN OVERDRIVE’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 26th Jan 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
• the practice of coasting downhill in a motor vehicle, with the engine disengaged—USA, 1949, lorry-drivers’ slang—one of the phrases in which ‘Mexican’ denotes basic devices or processes compared unfavourably with more advanced equivalents
• ‘MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE’: MEANING AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
• 25th Jan 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
• also ‘more than meets the ear’—meaning: more significance or complexity than is at first apparent—first used by John Milton as ‘more is meant than meets the ear’ in Il Penseroso (1645)
• ‘TO PUT ONE’S FEET UNDER THE TABLE’: MEANINGS AND EARLY OCCURRENCES
• 24th Jan 2023.Reading time 16 minutes.
• (literally) to sit at a table; (figuratively) to establish oneself firmly in a situation—‘to put one’s feet under the same table with somebody’: (literally) to sit at a table with somebody; (figuratively) to associate oneself with somebody
• ‘EVERY LITTLE HELPS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 23rd Jan 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
• every contribution towards a goal is valuable, regardless of how small it may be—UK, 1707—in Britain, particularly associated with Tesco, which has used this phrase as its slogan since 1993
• ‘TARDIS’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
• 22nd Jan 2023.Reading time 16 minutes.
• various meanings, in particular: something with a larger capacity than its outward appearance suggests—UK, 1968—the name, in TV series Doctor Who, of a time machine outwardly resembling a police telephone box, yet inwardly much larger
• ‘NOT CRICKET’: MEANINGS AND ORIGIN
• 21st Jan 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
• the game of cricket played in the incorrect manner or improper spirit—hence, more generally, something contrary to traditional standards of fairness or rectitude—UK, 19th century
• ‘A WALK IN THE PARK’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 19th Jan 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
• (the type of) something easy, effortless or pleasant—USA, 1937—originally denoted, in golf caddies’ slang, a nine-hole round, with some reference to the literal sense of the phrase
• ‘NOT TO PUT A FOOT WRONG’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 18th Jan 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
• to make no mistakes at all—UK, 1864—this phrase was originally used of racehorses and hunting horses
• ‘BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 17th Jan 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.
• an oppressive, very confined or crowded space—UK, 1764—refers to the punishment cell at Fort William, Calcutta, in which, in 1756, the Nawab of Bengal reputedly confined British and Anglo-Indian prisoners
• ‘THE SECOND SEX’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 15th Jan 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.
• women collectively, regarded as inferior to men—first occurred in ‘Don Juan’ (1821), by George Gordon Byron
• ‘BONKBUSTER’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 13th Jan 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.
• a type of popular novel characterised by frequent explicit descriptions of sexual encounters between the characters—from ‘bonk’, referring to sexual intercourse, and ‘blockbuster’—UK, 1988—perhaps coined by Sue Limb
• ‘SEX AND SHOPPING’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 12th Jan 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
• a genre of popular fiction featuring wealthy and glamorous characters who typically engage in frequent sexual encounters and extravagant spending—USA, 1985 & 1986, in reference to British novelist Jackie Collins and U.S. novelist Judith Krantz
• ‘TO BE ALL FINGERS AND THUMBS’: MEANING AND ORIGIN
• 11th Jan 2023.Reading time 11 minutes.
• also ‘to be all thumbs’—to be extremely clumsy (i.e., lacking in manual dexterity)—19th century—variants of the original phrase ‘each finger is a thumb’, already proverbial in the mid-16th century

0

numerals

• 999

miscellany

• a 19th-century document on English phrases
• 19th-century nicknames for London newspapers
• Eating in the Romance languages
• French pig idioms
• Galloglossia
• The language of domination
• On biblical translations: “what is lacking” vs. “the number of fools”
• On errors in the Oxford English Dictionary
• Our lunatic contributor
• The meaning of ‘temptation’ in the Lord’s Prayer
• ‘Wuthering Heights’

A

• a/an (indefinite article)
• A1
• a bad quarter of an hour
• a baker’s dozen
• a bastard on Father’s Day
• abdabs, or habdabs (to give somebody the (screaming) abdabs, or habdabs)
• a bit of crackling
• a bit tight under the arms
• above board
• above/below the salt
• a box of birds
• Absurdistan
• a bull in a china shop
• ACAB (all coppers are bastards)
• a calf’s head is best hot
• a car crash in slow motion
• a cat may look at a king
• accident (an accident waiting to happen)
• accidents will happen in the best-regulated families
• according to Cocker
• according to Gunter
• according to Hoyle
• ache
• a Chinaman’s chance
• a chip on one’s shoulder
• a cold day in hell
• a cold day in July
• to act one’s age, and not one’s shoe size
• actress (as the actress said to the bishop – as the bishop said to the actress)
• a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down
• Adam and Eve (to believe)
• adder (deaf as an adder)
• admirable Crichton
• ado
• adorkable
• a dose of salts
• adultescent
• aerial ping-pong
• a far cry
• a fart in a spacesuit
• a fly in the ointment
• a foot in both camps
• a fox in a forest fire
• after the Lord Mayor’s Show (comes the dung-cart)
• Aga saga
• age (to act one’s age, and not one’s shoe size)
• age before beauty
• agony aunt – agony column
• a grape on the business
• a green, or hot, Christmas, or winter, makes a fat churchyard
• ailurophile
• aisle (to have people rolling in the aisles)
• a Jap on Anzac Day
• Ajax
• alar(u)ms and excursions
• Alas! my poor brother
• Albany doctor
• albatross (an albatross around one’s neck)
• Albion
• alcoholiday
• a legend in one’s (own) lifetime
• a legend in one’s (own) lunchtime
• Alexandra curl
• Alexandra limp
• a little bird told me
• alive and kicking
• alive and well (and living in ——)
• all behind, like a cow’s tail
• all chiefs and no Indians
• all-dancing, all-singing
• all dressed up with nowhere to go
• all duck or no dinner
• All-Hallown Summer
• all hat and no cattle
• all Lombard Street to a China orange
• all mouth and (no) trousers
• all my eye and Betty Martin
• all of a tiswas
• all one’s Christmases come at once
• all over bar the shouting
• all over the place like a mad woman’s [+ noun]
• all over the shop
• all right, you heard a seal bark
• all roads lead to Rome
• (all) round the houses
• all-singing, all-dancing
• all Sir Garnet
• (all) the world and his wife
• all wool and a yard wide
• a load of cobblers
• alone
• a long streak of pelican shit
• a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do
• a memory like a sieve
• (as) American as apple pie
• am I bovvered?
• a mind like a sieve
• a millstone round someone’s neck
• amour fou
• to amputate one’s mahogany
• an/a (indefinite article)
• an accident waiting to happen
• an albatross around one’s neck
• a nasty piece of work
• an axe to grind
• and not a bone in the truck
• and so to bed
• (and) the best of British luck
• an egg yesterday and a feather-duster tomorrow
• an Englishman’s home is his castle
• angel (on the side of the angels)
• Annie’s room (up in Annie’s room)
• annulaire – ring finger
• a nod is as good as a wink
• an old poacher makes the best gamekeeper
• an old Spanish custom
• another brick in the wall
• another pair of shoes
• the answer to a maidens’ prayer
• the ant’s pants
• antwacky
• any man who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad
• anyone for tennis?
• anything for a quiet life
• anything for a quiet wife
• Apache (member of a North-American people – violent street ruffian in Paris)
• ape (to lead apes in hell)
• a penny soul never came to twopence
• a piece of work (an unpleasant person)
• a poke in the eye (with a sharp stick)
• apostrofly
• to appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober
• the apple of one’s eye
• apple-pie (adjective: typically American in character)
• apple-pie order
• apple polisher/apple polishing
• apples (Australian usage)
• to apply the blowtorch to somebody’s belly
• (just) a pretty face
• aptonym – aptonymic – aptronym – aptronymic
• a racing dog’s bollocks
• a rat with a gold tooth
• are you decent? (sufficiently clothed to see visitors)
• arm (to chance one’s arm)
• armchair (attributive modifier)
• armed to the teeth
• army boots (your mother wears army boots)
• a Roland for an Oliver
• Arthur (not to know whether one is Arthur or Martha)
• a safe pair of hands
• (as) American as apple pie
• a sandwich short of a picnic
• as Australian as meat pie
• (as) bold as brass
• Asbomania
• (as) busy as a brickie in Beirut
• (as) busy as a one-armed bill-sticker in a gale
• (as) busy as a one-armed milker
• (as) busy as a one-armed paperhanger
• (as) busy as a one-armed taxi-driver with crabs
• (as) camp as a row of tents
• (as) cold as a stepmother’s breath
• (as) cold as charity
• (as) cold as Pharaoh’s heart
• (as) daft as a brush
• (as) dim as a Toc H lamp
• (as) dead as the (or a) dodo
• as demure as a whore at a christening
• (as) drunk as Chloe
• (as) dry as a Pommy’s towel
• (as) fit as a fiddle
• (as) fit as a mallee bull
• (as) flash as a rat with a gold tooth
• (as) fresh as a daisy
• (as) full as a goog
• (as) game as Ned Kelly
• a shag on a rock
• (as) happy as a clam
• (as) happy as a sandboy
• (as) happy as Larry
• (as) hard as Pharaoh’s heart
• (as) hot, or (as) strong, as mustard
• ashtray (as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike)
• (as) independent as a hog on ice
• (as) keen as mustard
• as lucky as the pox doctor’s clerk
• (as) mad as a cut snake
• (as) mad as a hatter
• (as) mad as a March hare
• (as) mad as a meat-ax(e)
• (as) mad as a snake – (as) mad as snakes
• as much use as a chocolate teapot
• as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike
• a snake in the grass
• a sniff of the barmaid’s apron
• a snowball’s chance (in hell)
• a spare tyre around the waistline
• asphalt jungle
• (as) poor as a church mouse
• a sprat to catch a mackerel
• as quick as greased lightning
• (as) right as a trivet
• (as) savage as a meat-ax(e)
• as scarce as pork chops in a Jewish boarding house
• as scarce as rocking-horse manure
• (as) sick as a parrot
• (as) snug as [animal name] (in —)
• (as) sure as God made little apples
• as the actress said to the bishop
• as the bishop said to the actress
• as the blind man said (used in association with ‘see’)
• as the crow flies
• (as) thick as thieves
• (as) thick as two short planks
• a stiff upper lip
• a storm, or a tempest, in a teacup, or in a teapot
• Astroturf
• as useful as a chocolate teapot
• as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike
• (as) warm as toast
• (as) wicked as a meat-ax(e)
• a tempest, or a storm, in a teacup, or in a teapot
• a thumbnail dipped in tar
• Atlantic
• atone
• at one fell swoop
• at sixes and sevens
• at someone’s beck and call
• to attend Lilywhite’s party
• Attila ((somewhere) to the right of Attila, or of Genghis Khan)
• auld lang syne
• Aunt (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Auntie: The Times (London newspaper) – the BBC
• Aunt Sally
• au reservoir
• Australian (the (great) Australian adjective)
• Australian (the (great) Australian salute)
• autumn-spring
• a verandah over the toy shop
• avoirdupois
• Avon’s Swan
• away with the fairies
• a wet blanket
• a whale of a (good) time
• the awkward age – l’âge ingrat
• awkward turtle
• a word in your shell-like
• axe (an axe to grind)

B

• baby blues
• backronym
• backroom boys
• backseat driver
• back to the drawing board
• backward in coming forward
• backwards, the way Molly went to church
• bad hair day
• a bad quarter of an hour
• bag lady
• bag of mystery
• a baker’s dozen
• bald-headed (in a rush without care or caution)
• baloney
• Bamboo Curtain
• Bananaland (Queensland) – Bananalander (Queenslander)
• banana republic
• bandwagon
• banger
• bang for the buck
• to bang like a dunny door
• bang went, or goes, sixpence
• bank (to laugh/cry all the way to the bank)
• bankster
• barbecue stopper
• Barcoo (the Barcoo salute)
• Bardolatry
• barefoot(ed) and pregnant
• bark mitzvah
• barmy
• Barney’s bull
• basket case
• basket(ful) of crabs
• a bastard on Father’s Day
• bat (to have bats in one’s belfry)
• Bath (go to Bath (and get your head shaved))
• BCGs – birth-control glasses
• to be able to talk under water (or under wet cement, under wet concrete)
• to be a far cry from
• to be all fingers and thumbs
• to be all hat and no cattle
• to be all mouth and (no) trousers
• to be all thumbs
• to be all to the mustard
• beanfeast
• beano
• to beard the lion in his den
• the Beast from the East
• to beat Banagher
• to beat the bejesus out of someone
• to beat the Dutch
• beauty sleep
• beaver (eager beaver)
• to be a box of birds
• to be barking up the wrong tree
• to be born on the wrong side of the blanket
• to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth
• beck (at someone’s beck and call)
• to be decent (sufficiently clothed to see visitors)
• bedlam
• bedside manner
• bee (social gathering for a specific purpose)
• bee (to have a bee in one’s bonnet)
• been there, done that (and got the T-shirt)
• been thrown out of better places than this
• beer and skittles
• beer o’clock
• beer today (and) gone tomorrow
• the bee’s knees
• beetle-crusher
• to beggar belief
• before one can say Jack Robinson
• begging bowl (appeal for financial help)
• behind, like a cow’s tail
• behind the eight ball
• to be in a cleft stick
• bejesus
• to be left holding, or carrying, the baby
• belief (to beggar belief)
• to belittle
• to bell the cat
• below/above the salt
• belt and braces – belt and suspenders
• to be mustard
• Benjamin’s mess – Benjamin’s portion
• to be not so green as one is cabbage-looking
• to be on hand like a sore thumb
• to be on the blanket
• to be part and parcel of
• to be past one’s sell-by date
• to be saved by the bell – être sauvé par le gong
• best bib and tucker
• (and) the best of British luck
• the best thing since sliced bread
• to be the mustard
• better dead than red – better red than dead
• better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick
• Betty Martin (all my eye and Betty Martin)
• between a rock and a hard place
• between the devil and the deep blue sea
• betwixt and between
• to be unable to run a whelk stall
• beyond the pale
• bib and tucker (one’s best bib and tucker)
• Big Ben
• big girl’s blouse
• big hat—no cattle
• the big smoke
• bijou
• bikini
• Bill (black, or dark, over Bill’s, or Will’s, mother’s)
• bimbette
• bingo (the (great) god Bingo)
• bingo wings
• bird (a little bird told me)
• bird (to get the bird)
• (the) birds and (the) bees (the facts about sexual reproduction)
• bird’s-eye view
• birth-control glasses
• biscuit (to take the biscuit)
• bishop (as the bishop said to the actress – as the actress said to the bishop)
• the bitch goddess
• to bite the bullet
• black, or dark, over Bill’s, or Will’s, mother’s
• black sheep
• blackboard jungle
• blanket
• blanket finish
• blarney
• blind date
• blind eye (to turn a blind eye)
• blind Freddy
• blind man (‘said the blind man’ and variants used in association with ‘see’)
• blind scouse
• blonde moment
• blood (someone’s blood is worth bottling)
• blood, sweat, and tears
• blood wagon
• Bloody Mary (cocktail)
• Bloody Mary (unnamed precursors of the cocktail)
• Bloomsday – Bloom’s day
• blotto
• to blow a raspberry
• blowtorch (to apply the blowtorch to somebody’s belly)
• blue (out of the blue)
• blue-arsed fly (like a blue-arsed fly)
• blue Monday
• blue moon
• blues
• blue sky and hot air
• blue-sky research
• blue-sky talk
• blurb
• board (above board)
• bobby
• bob’s your uncle
• Boche
• bodkin (a person wedged between others)
• to bogart
• to boggle (the mind boggles)
• (as) bold as brass
• bollocks (the dog’s bollocks – the bollocks)
• boloney
• bomb (to go (down) like a bomb – to go down a bomb)
• Bombay duck
• Bondi (like a Bondi tram)
• bone (to make no bones about something)
• bone-box
• bone idle
• bonfire
• bonkers
• boo (wouldn’t say boo to a goose)
• boob tuber
• boodle (the whole boodle)
• the books won’t freeze
• boots under the bed
• born in a barn/a field/a sawmill/a tent
• born on the wrong side of the blanket
• born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth
• bothsideism – bothsidesism
• bottle episode – bottle show
• boudoir bandicoot
• boustrophedon
• bovver (am I bovvered?)
• bovver boy
• to bow (down) in the house of Rimmon
• bowler (hat) ((return to) civilian life)
• Box and Cox
• box and dice
• Boxing Day
• a box of birds
• box of dominoes
• box of ivories
• boy (to send a boy to do a man’s work)
• boycott
• boy meets girl
• boys in the backroom
• boys will be boys
• brass (to bring [someone or something] (right) down to the brass)
• brass (to come (right) down to the brass)
• brass monkey (extremely cold weather)
• brass tacks (to come, or to get, down to brass tacks [early instances])
• brass tacks (to come, or to get, down to brass tacks [hypothesis as to the origin])
• bread (to have one’s bread buttered for life)
• bread (it’s no bread and butter of mine)
• bread (to know on which side one’s bread is buttered)
• bread (to want one’s bread buttered on both sides)
• bread-and-butter letter
• bread and circuses
• bread and roses
• bread-artist
• breadline
• to break a butterfly on a wheel
• breakfast (call me anything, so long as you don’t call me late to breakfast)
• to break one’s duck
• to break the ice
• breastaurant
• breath (don’t hold your breath)
• brewery (couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery)
• Brexit
• brick (to drop a brick)
• bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
• to bring [someone or something] (right) down to the brass
• to bring home the bacon
• to bring [someone or something] (right) down to the brass
• Bristol (shipshape and Bristol fashion)
• Briticism
• brolly hop
• brothel-creepers
• brown bomber
• Brownie (Girl Scout or Girl Guide)
• brownie point
• brunch
• Brylcreem Boy
• Buckley’s (chance)
• budget
• budgie smugglers
• Buggin’s turn
• Bugs Bunny (eagle at the top of the Australian-American Memorial in Canberra)
• bull (like a bull in a china shop)
• bullamacow
• bulldozer
• bully
• bullycide
• bums on seats
• Bunburying
• bunny boiler
• burnsides
• to burn the midnight oil
• buroo (on the buroo)
• burton (to go for a burton)
• to bury one’s head in the sand
• bus (to miss the bus)
• bush telegraph
• (as) busy as a brickie in Beirut
• (as) busy as a one-armed bill-sticker in a gale
• (as) busy as a one-armed milker
• (as) busy as a one-armed paperhanger
• (as) busy as a one-armed taxi-driver with crabs
• the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker
• buttered (to have one’s bread buttered for life)
• buttered (to know on which side one’s bread is buttered)
• buttered (to want one’s bread buttered on both sides)
• butterfingered – butterfingers
• butterflies in one’s stomach
• butterfly
• butterfly kiss
• to button-hold – to buttonhole
• butty (sandwich – slice of bread spread with butter)
• to buy a pig in a poke
• by a long chalk
• by hook or by crook
• by the skin of one’s teeth

C

• cabbage (to be not so green as one is cabbage-looking)
• cab off the rank
• caboodle (the whole caboodle)
• cackleberry
• cahoot
• cake (to take the cake)
• cake (you can’t have your cake and eat it)
• cakeage
• calf’s head is best hot – calves’ heads are best hot
• to call a spade a spade
• calligram
• call me anything, so long as you don’t call me late to dinner
• (as) camp as, or camper than, a row of tents
• can a moose crochet?
• canary in the coal mine
• can eat an apple through a picket fence
• cannon (loose cannon)
• cannon fodder
• can talk under water (or under wet cement, under wet concrete)
• cap-a-pie
• caper (to cut a caper)
• cappuccino
• capsize
• captcha
• Capuchin
• a car crash in slow motion
• car-crash television
• carrot and stick
• to carry coals to Newcastle
• (to be left) to carry the baby
• castle (an Englishman’s home is his castle)
• castles in Spain/in the air
• to cast nasturtiums on, or at
• cat (a cat may look at a king)
• cat (to let the cat out of the bag)
• cat (like a cat on hot bricks)
• cat (like a cat on a hot tin roof)
• cat (to look like something the cat has brought in)
• cat (no room to swing a cat)
• cat (not a cat in hell’s chance)
• cat (to see which way the cat jumps)
• the Cat-and-Mouse Act
• cat mitzvah
• cat-o’-nine-tails
• cats and dogs, to rain (authentic origin)– part 1
• cats and dogs, to rain (hypothesis as to the origin) part 2
• the cat’s whiskers
• caught in the headlights
• caviar to the general
• chain-smoker
• chair à canon
• chalk (by a long chalk)
• champagne socialism – champagne socialist
• to chance one’s arm
• chance would be a fine thing
• to change horses in midstream/while crossing a stream
• chardonnay socialism – chardonnay socialist
• to charge like the Light Brigade
• charity ((as) cold as charity)
• charity dame – charity moll
• charley horse
• to chase the dragon
• Château-la-Pompe
• Château Plonk
• chateau tap-water
• chav
• cheese – fromage
• cherchez la femme
• Cheshire cat (to grin like a Cheshire cat)
• chestnut (old chestnut – marronnier)
• to chew nails and spit rust
• chicken-and-egg
• chief (too many chiefs and not enough Indians)
• Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office
• chillax
• China orange (all Lombard Street to a China orange)
• Chinaman (he must have killed a Chinaman)
• a Chinaman’s chance
• Chinese burn
• a chip on one’s shoulder
• chocolate teapot (as much use as a chocolate teapot)
• choke, chicken: more are hatching
• chook (may your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down)
• to chop and change
• Christmas grip – Christmas hold
• Christmas Truce of 1914
• church ain’t out ’till the fat lady sings, ’till the singing is over
• church mouse ((as) poor as a church mouse)
• churchyard (a green, or hot, Christmas, or winter, makes a fat churchyard)
• churchyard cough
• churchyard luck
• ciao
• cicerone
• clam ((as) happy as a clam)
• clanger (to drop a clanger)
• Clapham (the man on the Clapham omnibus)
• the Clapham Sect
• clapper (like the clappers)
• claptrap
• cleanliness is next to godliness
• the clean potato
• cleft stick
• clew
• cloak
• cloak-and-dagger
• clock
• cloud (every cloud has a silver lining)
• cloud-cuckoo-land
• clover (in clover, i.e., in ease and luxury)
• clue
• to clutch the pearls
• coals (to carry coals to Newcastle)
• cobbler (let the cobbler stick to his last)
• cobblers (rhyming slang for ‘balls’, i.e., ‘testicles’, hence ‘nonsense’)
• cock-a-hoop
• to cock a snook
• cock-and-bull story
• cocked hat, to knock into a
• Cocker, according to
• cockle (to warm the cockles of one’s heart)
• cockney
• coconut (black) (Australian Aborigine who has ‘betrayed’ his identity)
• codswallop
• Coggeshall job
• coil (this mortal coil)
• (as) cold as a stepmother’s breath
• (as) cold as charity
• (as) cold as Pharaoh’s heart
• cold call
• cold comfort
• a cold day in hell
• a cold day in July
• cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
• the cold shoulder
• cold turkey (as used of a drug addict)
• Collins (letter of thanks for hospitality)
• column (one from column A (and) one from column B)
• to come a cropper
• to come a gutser
• to come, or to get, down to brass tacks (early instances)
• to come, or to get, down to brass tacks (hypothesis as to the origin)
• to come (right) down to the brass
• to come out of the woodwork
• to come (right) down to the brass
• to come to a sticky end
• to come the old soldier over someone
• to come up with the rations
• coming? so is Christmas!
• concreteberg
• concrete jungle
• conspicuous by one’s/its absence
• Continent isolated (satirical of British insularity)
• contranym
• contredanse
• contronym
• conundrum
• cookie (that’s how, or the way, the cookie crumbles)
• cookie ((that’s when) the cookie crumbled)
• cookie pusher
• cool Britannia
• cootie
• Corbynista
• corduroy
• coronation chicken
• Corrupticut
• costa (Spanish noun used in invented place names)
• couch potato
• could eat an apple through a picket fence
• couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding
• couldn’t lead a flock of homing pigeons
• couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery
• couldn’t punch a hole in a wet Echo
• couldn’t stop a pig (in a gate)
• couldn’t work in an iron lung
• could sell refrigerators to the Eskimos
• could talk under water (or under wet cement, under wet concrete)
• to count sheep – compter les moutons
• counter (to nail to the counter)
• to cover more ground than Burke and Wills
• coward
• cowardy, cowardy custard
• crackling (women regarded collectively as objects of sexual desire)
• to crawl out of the woodwork
• crazy bone
• crébilloner – lèche-vitrine(s) – window shopping
• credit (to give credit where credit is due)
• cretin
• Crichton, admirable
• criss-cross
• croque-madame
• croque-monsieur
• cross I win (and) pile you lose
• cross my heart (and hope to die)
• to cross the floor
• crow’s nest
• crumbs from a rich man’s table
• crumpet (sexual meanings in British English)
• crumpet (not worth a crumpet)
• cruse (widow’s cruse)
• to cry/laugh all the way to the bank
• cucumber sandwiches on the lawn
• cuff (off the cuff)
• culture vulture
• cupboard love
• a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down
• the cup that cheers
• curate’s egg
• curfew
• curiosity killed the cat
• curiouser and curiouser
• to curse one’s stars
• curtain lecture
• curtain-twitcher – curtain-twitching
• cut (to have one’s work cut out)
• to cut a caper
• cut and dried
• to cut both ways
• to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face
• to cut the mustard
• to cut to the chase
• Cymru

D

• dadchelor party
• dad-dancing
• dad-joke
• Daily Fail, Daily Heil, Daily Wail (nicknames for the Daily Mail of London)
• daisy, (as) fresh as a
• daisies, to push up
• damn, not to give a tinker’s
• damnall at Blackall
• (you’re) damned if you do and damned if you don’t
• dandelion
• dandy
• dark, or black, over Bill’s, or Will’s, mother’s
• day (the day’s (only) a pup)
• daylight robbery
• dead (— is dead but won’t lie down)
• dead and never called me mother
• dead man’s shoes, to wait for
• deadline
• dementia Americana
• devil (between the devil and the deep blue sea)
• devil (the devil to pay)
• Dickless Tracy
• Dicky’s meadow, in
• dictionary (to have swallowed a dictionary)
• different ships, different long splices
• different strokes for different folks
• (as) dim as a Toc H lamp
• dine and dash
• dinner (call me anything, so long as you don’t call me late to dinner)
• dinnyhayser
• Disgusted
• to do a Dame Nellie – to do a Melba
• doesn’t buy (the) groceries
• to doff
• dog mitzvah
• dog’s letter, the
• dole, on the
• dolly (up to dolly’s wax)
• domino (figurative uses)
• domino-box
• to don
• done up like a pox doctor’s clerk
• donkey
• donkey’s years
• don’t argue (the straight-arm fend-off in rugby)
• don’t do anything I wouldn’t
• don’t hold your breath
• don’t laugh—your daughter may be inside
• don’t look a gift horse in the mouth
• don’t spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar
• dook (the hand or fist)
• doolally
• doona day
• Dorothy Dix (Australian politics)
• dose (like a dose of salts)
• Double Pay (i.e., Double Bay, in Sydney, Australia)
• down the back of the sofa
• down the river, to sell
• down the side of the sofa
• dozen, a baker’s
• dozen, thirteen to the
• drawing board, back to the
• dressed to the nines
• Dr. Greenfield (to worship under Dr. Greenfield)
• to drink the Kool-Aid
• to drive pigs (to market)
• to drop something or somebody like a hot potato
• (as) drunk as Chloe
• (as) dry as a Pommy’s towel
• duck (to break one’s duck)
• ducks on the pond
• dumb bunny
• to dumbsize
• dunny (in Australian phrases)
• duration, for the
• Dutching
• duvet day

E

• eager beaver
• early door(s) (early admission to a theatrical performance)
• early doors (near the beginning)
• earthling
• earworm
• to eat humble pie
• to eat the calf in the cow’s belly
• eavesdrop
• eggs, to teach one’s grandmother to suck
• eight ball (behind the eight ball)
• eighth wonder of the world
• elbow grease
• eligible bachelor
• ember months
• Emma Chisit
• the Emmaville Express
• enemy (How goes the enemy?)
• Energizer bunny
• English as she is spoke
• an Englishman’s home is his castle
• enemy within, the
• esprit d’escalier
• even ash
• even a stopped clock is right twice a day
• even paranoids have enemies
• every cloud has a silver lining
• every Preston Guild
• everything but the kitchen sink
• everything’s apples
• everything’s wrong in Wollongong
• Eve-teaser – Eve-teasing
• excuse-me dance
• excuse my French
• to extract the urine
• to extract the Michael
• eye (all my eye and Betty Martin)
• eyes, to pull the wool over someone’s

F

• face, to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s
• fag end
• fair-weather friend
• to fall off the turnip truck
• false dawn
• famous for fifteen minutes
• fang-farrier
• Fanny Adams – Harriet Lane
• far from the madding crowd
• a fart in a spacesuit
• fatberg
• fat churchyard (a green, or hot, Christmas, or winter, makes a fat churchyard)
• father (is your father a glazier?)
• fat lady (church ain’t out, the opera ain’t over, until the fat lady sings)
• fawn
• feather-duster (an egg yesterday and a feather-duster tomorrow)
• fed up
• fedora
• feeding time at the zoo
• to feel like a bastard on Father’s Day
• fell swoop, at one
• feminophobia – femiphobia
• femme, cherchez la
• fetus
• fiddle, (as) fit as a
• field bishop
• fifteen minutes, famous for
• fifth column
• to fight like Kilkenny cats
• to fight one’s way out of a paper bag
• figures won’t lie, but liars will figure
• Fiji uncle
• (fingernails) in mourning for the cat
• fire (to set the Thames on fire)
• first catch your hare
• (as) fit as a fiddle
• (as) fit as a mallee bull
• five o’clock shadow
• (as) flash as a rat with a gold tooth
• flat out like a lizard drinking
• flea market
• flexible friend (i.e. credit card)
• flexitarian
• flirt
• to fly a kite
• fly-by-night
• a fly in the ointment
• fly-tipping
• foaled of an acorn, a horse that was
• fog in Channel—Continent isolated
• foie gras
• food for powder
• foolometer
• for the duration
• the forbidden fruit
• forelock, to take time by the
• forlorn hope
• for show and not for blow
• forty winks
• four-leaf, or four-leaved, clover
• the fourth estate
• fox (a fox in a forest fire)
• Franglais
• Franken-
• Frankenstein food
• Frankenstein’s monster
• freedom fries
• Fremantle doctor
• French, excuse my
• French hours
• French kiss
• French leave
• (as) fresh as a daisy
• frightener (to put the frighteners on somebody)
• frog (to have a frog in one’s throat)
• Froggy
• to frog-march
• frogspawn (tapioca pudding)
• fromage – cheese
• from hero to zero
• from marbles to manslaughter
• from pillar to post
• from soup to nuts
• from the horse’s mouth, straight
• from zero to hero
• front (more front than)
• fudge factor
• (as) full as a goog
• full monty
• funny bone
• the funny things you see when you haven’t got your gun
• further back, or further behind, than Walla Walla

G

• galaxy
• gallery, to play to the
• (as) game as Ned Kelly
• garbage in, garbage out
• garbageologist – garbageology
• garbologist (refuse collector)
• garbology (refuse collection)
• garters, to have someone’s guts for
• gas and gaiters
• gauntlet, to run the
• gavroche
• gazette
• geek
• General February/Fevrier
• General January/Janvier
• General Winter
• Georgium Sidus
• get inside and pull the blinds down
• get on your bike
• to get off, or out, at Redfern, at Gateshead, etc. (to practise coitus interruptus)
• to get the bird
• gianduja
• gift horse (don’t look a gift horse in the mouth)
• giggle-house
• GIGO (garbage in, garbage out)
• gigolo
• ginger group
• gippy tummy
• girls will be girls
• to give a poke in the eye (with a — stick)
• to give a raspberry
• not to give a tinker’s damn
• to give credit where credit is due
• to give someone furiously to think
• to give the little lady a (great) big hand
• glad and sorry (hire purchase)
• Glasgow kiss
• glazier (is your father a glazier?)
• globaloney
• glutton for punishment
• to go (and) jump in(to) the lake
• to go ballistic
• gobsmacked
• Goddam (an Englishman)
• God help those who are caught helping themselves
• to go down a bomb – to go (down) like a bomb
• to go down like a lead balloon
• God slot
• godwottery
• to go for the jugular
• to go from hero to zero
• to go from zero to hero
• to go haywire
• to go home in an ambulance
• golf widow
• go to Bath (and get your head shaved)
• gone to Gowings
• good field, no hit
• to go postal
• gone on the padre’s bike
• gongoozler
• goose, wouldn’t say boo to a
• gooseberry, to play
• to go over like a lead balloon
• Gorgeous Wrecks
• gorilla dust
• gory details
• gossip
• got a feed at the Tweed
• to go to Lilywhite’s party
• to go to Specsavers
• got the arse at Bulli Pass
• government stroke
• Granny (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• granny-bashing – granny-battering
• a grape on the business
• grasshopper (a tourist, Australia)
• grass widow
• grass widower
• Grauniad
• grease monkey
• the (great) Australian adjective
• the (great) Australian salute
• green (to be not so green as one is cabbage-looking)
• a green, or hot, Christmas, or winter, makes a fat churchyard
• Greenfield (to sleep in Mother Greenfield’s (lodgings) – to worship under Dr. Greenfield)
• green fingers
• green thumb
• Greek (it’s (all) Greek to me)
• grey meanie
• grimalkin
• to grin like a Cheshire cat
• grog
• grotty
• Guardianista
• Gundy (no good to Gundy)
• Gunter (according to Gunter)
• guts (to have someone’s guts for garters)
• gutser
• guy
• gyppy tummy

H

• hail-fellow-well-met
• hair (keep your hair on)
• hair of the dog
• hairy dog
• hairy eyeball
• hairy goat
• halcyon
• half seas over
• the Ham and Egg Parade
• ham-fisted – ham-handed
• Hamlet without the Prince
• hand (the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing)
• handbag (verb)
• handbags at ten paces
• hand of glory
• happy as a bastard on Father’s Day
• (as) happy as a clam
• (as) happy as a sandboy
• happy little Vegemite
• (as) hard as Pharaoh’s heart
• hardy annual
• hare (first catch your hare)
• Harriet Lane – Fanny Adams
• hash (to make a hash of something)
• hash (to settle someone’s hash)
• hat trick
• hatter, (as) mad as a
• to have a bee in one’s bonnet
• to have a foot in both camps
• to have a frog in one’s throat
• to have a person’s name on it
• to have a tiger by the tail
• to have bats in one’s belfry
• to have both oars in the water
• to have butterflies in one’s stomach
• to have death adders in one’s pocket
• to have got sand in one’s shoes
• to have passed one’s sell-by date
• to have someone’s guts for garters
• to have someone’s name on it
• to have swallowed a dictionary
• to have two left feet, or, two left hands
• haywire, to go
• headless chicken
• heads I win (and) tails you lose
• to heap Pelion upon Ossa
• heart (to warm the cockles of one’s heart)
• heart of hearts
• heart of oak
• Heavens to Betsy
• hell (to lead apes in hell)
• hell (not a cat in hell’s chance)
• hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
• hell is paved with good intentions
• “Hell!” said the duchess
• hellzapoppin’
• helpmate
• Hesperus (like the wreck of the Hesperus)
• hewer of wood and drawer of water
• to hide the salami
• to hide the sausage
• hikikomori
• Hobson’s choice
• Hogs Norton
• hold (don’t hold your breath)
• holier-than-thou
• Hollywood ending
• home (an Englishman’s home is his castle)
• home (away) from home
• home is where the heart is
• home, James (and don’t spare the horses)
• honest Injun
• honeymoon
• hooligan
• Hooray Henry
• hope your rabbit dies
• horror stretch
• a horse that was foaled of an acorn
• horse (to change/swap horses in midstream/while crossing a stream)
• horse (don’t look a gift horse in the mouth)
• horse (straight from the horse’s mouth)
• hospital pass
• hot (like a cat on hot bricks)
• hot (like a cat on a hot tin roof)
• hot-arsed
• a hot, or green, Christmas, or winter, makes a fat churchyard
• hot dog
• hot mess
• hovercraft
• how about a game of tennis?
• how are you off for soap?
• how goes the enemy?
• how long is a piece of string?
• Hoyle, according to
• Hughie (Australian usage)
• huile de coude (i.e., elbow grease)
• human bean
• humble pie, to eat
• humongous
• hung parliament

I

• I don’t care what they call me, so long as they don’t call me late to dinner
• if it should rain — (and variants, used of ill luck)
• if it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium
• if my aunt had been a man, she would have been my uncle
• if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain
• if your aunt had been a man, she would have been your uncle
• if you want to get ahead, get a hat
• ignorance is bliss
• I hope your rabbit dies
• I’ll go to the foot of our stairs
• imbecile
• imbuggerance (absolute indifference)
• immolate
• impressionism – impressionist
• I’m talking to the butcher, not to the block
• in a cleft stick
• in a nutshell
• in Annie’s room, up
• in cahoots
• in clover (in ease and luxury)
• incunabula
• (as) independent as a hog on ice
• Indian burn
• Indian summer
• in Dicky’s meadow
• in jail at Innisfail
• in more trouble than Speed Gordon
• in mothballs
• (fingernails) in mourning for the cat
• inoperative statement
• interview without coffee
• in the grip of the grape
• in the pudding club
• in the swim
• I resemble that remark
• Irishman’s rise
• iron lung (wouldn’t work in an iron lung)
• iron maiden
• Iron Weathercock (Liz Truss)
• — is dead but won’t lie down
• I see, said the blind man
• is your father a glazier?
• itching palm
• itchy feet
• it’s (all) Greek to me
• it’s all over bar the shouting
• it’s moments like these
• it’s no bread and butter of mine
• it’s raining in London
• it takes two to tango
• it will be all right at night (theatrical phrase)
• I’ve been thrown out of better places than this
• I’ve got the time if you’ve got the inclination
• ivory-box
• ivory tower

J

• Jack Robinson (before one can say Jack Robinson)
• jam butty – jam sandwich (police patrol car)
• a Jap on Anzac Day
• Jenny Darby (policeman)
• jerry-builder
• Jesus boots
• Jesus Hilton
• Jimmy Woodser
• jingo
• job (that job’s jobbed)
• Joe Bloggs
• Joe Six-Pack
• Joe Soap
• Johnny Arab
• Johnny Canuck
• Johnny Crapaud
• Johnny Darm (policeman)
• Johnny Foreigner
• Johnny Onions
• jolly hockey stick(s)
• Joneses, to keep up with the
• jot – tittle
• to judge a book by its cover
• to jump one’s horse over the bar
• to jump the queue
• jump up whitefellow
• (just) a pretty face

K

• to kangaroo (to receive or to give kangaroo care)
• kangaroo care
• kangaroo visit
• Kathleen Mavourneen
• to keep an ear to the ground
• to keep the bastards honest
• to keep up with the Joneses
• keep your eye on the sparrow
• keep your hair on
• keep your shirt on
• Kensington Gore (artificial blood)
• kettle of fish, a pretty
• keytar
• to kick the bucket
• kidnap
• kidney, of that
• kidult
• Kilkenny cats
• Kilroy (early instances)
• Kilroy (origin?)
• Kindertransport
• King (to take the (King’s/Queen’s) shilling)
• King Charles’s head
• kingdom come
• kippers and curtains
• kiss cam
• kissing-trap
• kitchen sink, everything but the
• kite, to fly a
• knife-and-forker – knife-and-fork man
• knight in shining armour
• to knock into a cocked hat
• to knock the skin off a rice pudding
• to know one’s onions
• knuckle-butty – knuckle-sandwich
• kompromat
• Kruschen (that, or the, Kruschen feeling)
• kunlangeta

L

• Lady Blamey
• lager lout
• the land of fruits and nuts
• land of Nod
• to lark about
• last, to stick to one’s
• La Stupenda
• to laugh like a drain
• to lead apes in hell
• lead balloon
• lead in one’s pencil
• leather and prunella
• leave, French
• to leave in the lurch
• to leave no stone unturned
• the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing
• leg, to pull someone’s
• to let the cat out of the bag
• let the cobbler stick to his last
• lettuce
• to lick into shape
• lightbulb moment
• like a Bondi tram
• like a cat on hot bricks
• like a cat on a hot tin roof
• like a country dunny
• like a deer caught in the headlights
• like a dose of salts
• like a dunny in a desert
• like a headless chicken
• like a pork chop in a synagogue
• like a rabbit caught in the headlights
• like a red rag to a bull
• like a stunned mullet
• like a twisted sandshoe
• like billy-o
• like death warmed up
• like one o’clock
• like pulling teeth
• like the back (end) of a bus
• like the wreck of the Hesperus
• like watching paint dry
• Lilywhite’s party
• limerence
• limousine liberal
• Linus blanket
• the (little) man in the boat
• little man, you’ve had a busy day
• little old ladies in tennis shoes
• little rabbits have big ears
• to live on the smell of an oil rag
• liver, to wash the milk off one’s
• Liverpool gentleman (as opposed to Manchester man)
• Liverpool pantile (sea-biscuit)
• Liverpudlian
• lobster
• loco-foco
• locust
• all Lombard Street to a China orange
• Londongrad
• London to a brick
• a long streak of pelican shit
• to look like a pox doctor’s clerk
• to look like something the cat has brought in
• look (mum, or ma), no hands!
• loony bin
• loony doctor
• loose cannon
• lorem ipsum
• to lose one’s marbles
• to lose the dressing room
• love (no love lost)
• lower than a snake’s belly
• low man on the totem (pole)
• lucky as a bastard on Father’s Day
• lupus
• lurch, to leave in the
• Lushington

M

• MacGyver
• Maconochie
• (as) mad as a cut snake
• (as) mad as a hatter
• (as) mad as a March hare
• (as) mad as a meat-ax(e)
• (as) mad as a snake – (as) mad as snakes
• Madchester
• madding crowd, far from the
• madeleine
• mad money
• magpiety
• mahogany (to amputate one’s mahogany)
• mahogany reef
• mahogany ridge
• maiden’s prayer, the answer to
• to make a better door than (a) window
• to make a hash of something
• to make a spoon or spoil a horn
• to make a Virginia fence
• to make (both) ends meet
• to make no bones about something
• to make one’s marble(s) good
• Malabar Hilton
• Mallaby-Deeley
• Malley’s cow
• Mamamouchi
• MAMIL
• Manchester man (as opposed to Liverpool gentleman)
• man from Mars
• Manhattanhenge
• the (little) man in the boat
• the man on the Clapham omnibus
• the man outside Hoyt’s
• a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do
• marbles, to lose one’s
• March hare, (as) mad as a
• mardy
• mare nostrum
• marines, tell that to the
• Marquis of Queensberry (rules)
• marronnier – old chestnut
• marrowsky
• Martha (not to know whether one is Arthur or Martha)
• martini lunch
• maudlin
• mauley (the hand or fist)
• mauldy
• Maundy
• Mayday
• mayonnaise
• may your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down
• may your rabbits die
• meat (one man’s meat is another man’s poison)
• meat and two veg
• a memory like a sieve
• men in buckram
• the men in (the) white coats
• merrythought – wishbone
• mess of pottage
• Mexican standoff
• mice and men, of
• midinette
• midnight oil, to burn the
• might find a berth in Perth
• milk (to wash the milk off one’s liver)
• milliner
• million (as a magic number)
• a millstone round someone’s neck
• milquetoast
• a mind like a sieve
• Mintie
• Miss – Ms
• Miss Otis regrets
• to miss the bus
• Moab
• mockumentary
• molly (in molly-dook, molly-handed, etc.)
• Mondayitis
• money for old rope
• monkey (to put [something] where the monkey put(s) the nuts)
• Monsieur Crapaud
• Montezuma’s Revenge
• moon, once in a blue
• moon, over the
• moonraker
• moonshine
• more camp than a row of tents
• more front than (early Australian uses)
• more front than (British and Irish uses)
• more hide than Jessie
• morning, noon and night
• moron
• Morrison hour
• mortal coil, this
• Morton’s forkMother Carey’s chicken
• mothball (in/out of mothballs)
• Mother Carey’s chicken
• Mother Greenfield’s (lodgings)
• motherhood and apple pie
• Mothering Sunday
• mother’s ruin
• mouseburger
• mouser
• Mr – Mrs
• Mr Fixit
• Mr Nice Guy
• Mr Plod (policeman)
• Mrs Grundy
• Ms (combination of Mrs and Miss)
• Mummerset
• must have killed a Chinaman
• muttons, to return to one’s
• my (giddy, sainted, etc.) aunt!
• myrmidon
• my stars and garters!
• mystery bag

N

• Nacht und Nebel
• to nail one’s colours to the mast
• nail, on the
• to nail (to the counter)
• to name and shame
• nanny state
• nasty piece of work
• neatnik
• neck and crop
• neck of the woods
• neighbour(s) from hell
• neither fish nor fowl
• Nelson (until/when Nelson gets his eye back)
• nice but dim
• night (the night’s (only) a pup)
• nightcap
• nincompoopiana
• Nine-nine-nine
• nines, dressed to the
• the nineteenth hole
• no bread and butter of mine
• nod (a nod is as good as a wink)
• Noddy suit
• no feedin’ at Eden
• no good to Gundy
• no joy without alloy/annoy
• no love lost
• no lucre at Echuca
• no man’s land
• nom de —
• nom de disc
• no more Mr Nice Guy
• no names, no pack drill
• no room to swing a cat
• nose (to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face)
• nose, to pay through the
• nosey parker
• not a bone in the truck
• not a cat in hell’s chance
• nothingburger
• not just a pretty face
• not the only pebble on the beach
• not the sharpest —— in the ——
• not to be able to fight one’s way out of a paper bag
• not to be able to [verb] for toffee
• not to be just a pretty face
• not to have two yachts, or Rolls-Royces, to rub together
• not to know whether one is Arthur or Martha
• not worth a crumpet
• nul points
• nuppence
• nutshell, in a

O

• off one’s trolley
• of mice and men
• of that kidney
• oil on troubled waters, to pour
• ointment, a fly in the
• old chestnut – marronnier
• old school tie
• old soldier (to come the old soldier over someone)
• Oliver (a Roland for an Oliver)
• omelette
• OMG
• omnibus (the man on the Clapham omnibus)
• omnishambles
• once in a blue moon
• one for show and one for blow
• one from column A (and) one from column B
• one fell swoop, at
• one flash and you’re ash
• one for the road – stirrup cup
• one man’s meat is another man’s poison
• one may as well have the game as the name
• one’s best bib and tucker
• one’s trumpeter is dead
• one swallow does not make a summer
• onion (to know one’s onions)
• Onion Johnny
• the only game in town
• on the blanket
• on the buroo
• on the dole
• on the nail
• on the pig’s back
• on the side of the angels
• on the spur of the moment
• on the wrong side of the tracks
• oojah
• oojah-cum-spiff
• oojamaflip
• open and shet, sign o’ more wet
• to open the kimono
• opera (the opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings)
• orange (all Lombard Street to a China orange)
• ordeal
• the order of the bootout of one’s skull
• Ossa (to pile Pelion upon Ossa)
• to out-Herod Herod
• out of mothballs
• out of the blue
• outside the box
• to out-Zola Zola
• overpaid, overdressed, oversexed and over here
• over the moon
• over the top
• owlhoot
• Oxford comma
• oxygen
• oxymoron
• oyster, the world is one’s

P

• padoodle
• padre (gone on the padre’s bike)
• to paint the Forth Bridge
• to paint the map red, or pink
• to paint the town red
• pale, beyond the
• panda (pedestrian crossing)
• panda (police patrol car)
• pandemonium
• panier de crabes
• panjandrum
• pan-loafy
• pantile (flat cake or biscuit – sea-biscuit)
• paparazzi
• paper bag (not to be able to fight one’s way out of a paper bag)
• paper tiger
• paper yabber
• paranoid (even paranoids have enemies)
• paraphernalia
• Paris syndrome
• parlour (attributive modifier)
• parlour patriot
• parlour socialist | parlour socialism
• parson’s week
• part and parcel
• Parthian shot
• parting shot
• passion-killer
• to pass the parcel
• pastiche – pastis
• the patter of tiny feet
• Paul Pry
• to pay through the nose
• PC Plod (policeman)
• peaceable kingdom
• pebble (the only pebble on the beach)
• pedigree
• peeping Tom
• Pelion (to pile Pelion upon Ossa)
• pen (the pen is mightier than the sword)
• penny (the penny dropped)
• a penny soul never came to twopence
• permacrisis
• person from Porlock
• pester power
• the Pest from the West
• Peter Grievous
• petrichor
• Pharaoh’s Revenge
• Philip (to appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober)
• philtrum
• piano player in a brothel
• Piccadilly window
• picnic
• picnic (a sandwich short of a picnic)
• piece of work (unpleasant person)
• pig (to buy a pig in a poke)
• pig (to sweat like a pig)
• pig in a python
• pigs might fly
• pigeon à la crapaudine – toad-in-the-hole
• to pile Pelion upon Ossa
• pillar to post, from
• pineapple, the rough end of the
• pink
• pink on the map
• pin-up girl
• pip (to squeeze until the pips squeak)
• pipe dream
• piping hot
• Pip, Squeak and Wilfred
• pizza face (a person with facial acne)
• place in the sun
• plain vanilla
• to play a good knife and fork
• to play gooseberry
• to (play) hide the salami
• to (play) hide the sausage
• to play possum
• to play to the gallery
• please the pigs
• Plod (policeman)
• plonk (cheap inferior wine)
• plot (the plot thickens)
• plus-fours and no breakfast
• poacher turned gamekeeper
• pogue
• point-blank
• poison (one man’s meat is another man’s poison)
• the politics of the warm inner glow
• Pollyanna
• poodle-faker
• Pooh-Bah
• (as) poor as a church mouse
• to pop one’s clogs
• pork pie – porky pie – porky (rhyming slang for ‘lie’)
• port – starboard
• posh
• postal, to go
• postcode (used attributively)
• potato-box
• potato-jaw
• potato-trap
• POTUS
• poulet
• pound-noteish
• pour encourager les autres
• to pour oil on troubled waters
• powfagged
• pox doctor’s clerk
• pregnant
• pregnant and barefoot(ed)
• the proof of the pudding is in the eating
• prosecco socialist
• prunes and prism(s)
• P’s and Q’s
• public enemy number one
• pudding (in the pudding club)
• pudding (the proof of the pudding is in the eating)
• to pull one’s socks up
• to pull out all the stops
• to pull someone’s leg
• to pull the wool over someone’s eyes
• pumpkinification
• to punch a hole in a wet Echo
• pup (the night’s (only) a pup)
• pup, to sell a
• to push up daisies
• pussy’s bow (up to pussy’s bow)
• put a sock in it
• to put a tiger in one’s tank
• to put on one’s thinking cap
• to put [something] where the monkey put(s) the nuts
• to put the cat among the pigeons
• to put the frighteners on somebody
• to put the toothpaste back in the tube

Q

• Queen (to take the (King’s/Queen’s) shilling)
• Queen Anne front and Mary Ann back
• Queen Anne is dead
• Queen Anne’s fan
• Queen Elizabeth is dead
• Queensberry rules
• Queensland (the Queensland salute)
• queue-jump
• (in) quick sticks
• quiz

R

• (white) rabbit(s) (good-luck incantation)
• Rachmanism
• rainbow (the end of the rainbow)
• to rain cats and dogs – part 1
• to rain cats and dogs – part 2
• to rain stair rods
• ranz-des-vaches
• raspberry (rude sound made by blowing with the tongue between the lips)
• a rat with a gold tooth
• rat (to smell a rat)
• razor gang
• to read the riot act
• real George
• the real Simon Pure
• to recharge one’s batteries
• red, to paint the town
• red herring
• red-light district
• red on the map
• red rag to a bull
• Red Sea pedestrian
• red top
• to reinvent the wheel
• reseda
• to return to one’s muttons
• rhesus
• rhubarb (theatrical term + denoting ‘nonsense’)
• rice pudding (couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding)
• Richard’s himself again
• Richard Snary
• to ride shotgun
• rift in the lute
• (as) right as a trivet
• the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing
• ring finger – annulaire
• riot act, to read the
• river, to sell down the
• river, to send up the
• roaring forties
• robot
• to rob Peter to pay Paul
• rocking-chair job
• rocking-chair money
• rocking horse (as scarce as rocking-horse manure)
• Roland (a Roland for an Oliver)
• Roman holiday
• roost, to rule the
• rose-coloured spectacles
• rosinback
• rôti sans pareil – turducken
• Rotten row
• the rough end of the pineapple
• royal we
• Ruby Murray (curry)
• rugby, racing and beer
• —— rule(s) OK
• to rule the roost
• to run like a hairy goat
• to run the gauntlet

S

• to sack
• sæva indignatio
• a safe pair of hands
• said the blind man (used in association with ‘see’)
• Sally, Aunt
• sandboy, (as) happy as a
• sandwich
• sandwich (a sandwich short of a picnic)
• sanglier
• sauce (what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander)
• (as) savage as a meat-ax(e)
• to save the day
• saved by the bell – sauvé par le gong
• savoury duck
• say boo to a goose, wouldn’t
• to say prunes
• scarlet letter
• schoolgirl complexion
• Scouse
• Scousette
• Scout’s honour
• sea (between the devil and the deep blue sea)
• season
• to see a man about a dog
• see that’s wet, see that’s dry
• to see which way the cat jumps
• see you later, agitator
• segocia
• to sell a pup
• sell-by date (to be past one’s sell-by date)
• to sell down the river
• to sell refrigerators to the Eskimos
• to sell sand in the Sahara
• to send a boy to do a man’s work
• send it down, Hughie!
• to send to Coventry
• to send up the river
• serendipity
• to set the cat among the pigeons
• to set the Thames on fire
• to settle someone’s hash
• sex and shopping
• a shag on a rock
• shambles
• Shank’s pony
• sheep, black
• shell-like (a word in your shell-like)
• shell out
• she’s apples
• shilling (to take the (King’s/Queen’s) shilling)
• ship (don’t spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar)
• shipshape and Bristol fashion
• shirt (keep your shirt on)
• shiver my timbers
• Shock-headed Peter
• shoe (another pair of shoes)
• shoe (to wait for a dead man’s shoes)
• to shoot the cat
• shopaholic – shopaholism
• shoplifting
• shopping trolley (i.e., Boris Johnson)
• to shop till one drops
• short-arm inspection
• short of a —— (mentally deficient, slightly crazy)
• short shrift
• shotgun (to ride shotgun)
• shotgun wedding
• shoulder, a chip on one’s
• shoulder, the cold
• should’ve gone to Specsavers
• show a leg
• Siberian Express
• sieve (a memory, or a mind, like a sieve)
• silent like the ‘p’ in swimming
• silk (you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear)
• silver lining, every cloud has a
• silver spoon (to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth)
• simon-pure
• Simon says
• simples (British interjection)
• sing ’em muck
• singing milkshake
• sirloin
• sixes and sevens, at
• six-hat and fifty-shirt
• six o’clock swill
• sixty-four (thousand) dollar question
• a skeleton at the feast
• skin (by the skin of one’s teeth)
• skinflint
• skinhead
• skirt patrol
• skull (out of one’s skull)
• slapstick
• Slav – slave
• to slave over a hot stove
• to sleep in Mother Greenfield’s (lodgings)
• to sleep like a top
• Sloane Ranger
• slobber-knocker – slobber-knock
• the Slough of Despond
• sly grog
• small beer
• small potatoes
• to smell a rat
• to smoke (you’ll be smoking next)
• smoke and mirrors
• a snake in the grass
• Snary, Richard
• sneeze
• a sniff of the barmaid’s apron
• (as) snug as [animal name] (in —)
• soap (how are you off for soap?)
• soapedy
• soap (opera)
• soccer
• soccer mom
• Socceroo
• social distancing
• sock (to pull one’s socks up)
• sock (put a sock in it)
• soft Mick
• soldier (to come the old soldier over someone)
• someone’s blood is worth bottling
• something nasty in the woodshed
• (from) soup to nuts
• sow (you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear)
• Spam medal
• spare the rod and spoil the child
• a spare tyre around the waistline
• Speed Gordon (in more trouble than Speed Gordon)
• spick and span
• to spin a yarn
• spine-bash
• spit and sawdust
• to spit the dummy
• spoil (don’t spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar)
• spoon (to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth)
• spoonerism
• sport
• a sprat to catch a mackerel
• spud
• spud-barber
• spud-bash – spud-basher – spud-bashing
• spur of the moment, on the
• Spy Wednesday
• squander-bug (British usage)
• square-eyed | square eyes
• squaw winter
• squeaky clean
• to squeeze a nickel until the Indian is riding the buffalo
• squeeze pidgin
• to squeeze until the pips squeak
• squid (you can’t tell the mind of a squid)
• squillion – squillionaire
• stalking horse
• stand and grow good
• starboard – port
• staycation
• to steal someone’s thunder
• stepmother ((as) cold as a stepmother’s breath)
• to sticker-lick – sticker-licker
• stick it up your jumper
• sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me
• to stick to one’s last
• stickybeak
• stirrup cup – one for the road
• stone (to leave no stone unturned)
• a storm, or a tempest, in a teacup, or in a teapot
• storm on Channel—Continent isolated
• straight and narrow, the
• straight from the horse’s mouth
• strawberry preacher
• Strine
• to study the history of the four kings (to play cards)
• summer of discontent
• sun (place in the sun)
• sunlit uplands
• sunstruck bone
• (as) sure as God made little apples
• svengali
• to have swallowed a dictionary
• one swallow does not make a summer
• to swap horses in midstream/while crossing a stream
• to sweat like a pig
• to sweat the small stuff
• swellegant
• swim, in the
• swoop, at one fell

T

• tabloid (1)
• tabloid (2)
• tace is Latin for candle
• Taffia
• take me to your leader (demand made by an extraterrestrial)
• to take one’s courage in both hands
• to take the checkered flag
• to take the (King’s/Queen’s) shilling
• to take time by the forelock
• to talk a glass eye to sleep
• to talk through (the back of) one’s neck
• tango (it takes two to tango)
• to tap the Admiral
• tar (don’t spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar)
• tart
• to teach one’s grandmother to suck eggs
• Teddy boy
• teeth like stars (false teeth)
• teetotal
• teetotum
• tell that to the marines
• a tempest, or a storm, in a teacup, or in a teapot
• une tempête dans un verre d’eau
• tennis
• tennis, anyone?
• Thames (to set the Thames on fire)
• to thank one’s (lucky) stars
• thank your mother for the rabbit(s)
• that cock won’t fight
• that dog won’t hunt
• that job’s jobbed
• that Kruschen feeling
• that schoolgirl complexion
• that way madness lies
• the answer to a maiden’s prayer
• the ant’s pants
• the Barcoo salute
• the Beast from the East
• the bee’s knees
• the big smoke
• (the) birds and (the) bees (the facts about sexual reproduction)
• the books of the four kings (playing cards)
• the books won’t freeze
• the cat’s whiskers
• the Clapham Sect
• the clean potato
• the cold shoulder
• the cup that cheers
• the day’s (only) a pup
• the devil to pay
• the dog’s letter
• the eighth wonder of the world
• the Emmaville Express
• the end of the rainbow
• the enemy within
• the fat lady (church ain’t out, the opera ain’t over, until the fat lady sings)
• the first cab off the rank
• the full monty
• the funny things you see when you haven’t got your gun
• the girls are bandy at Urandangie
• the gory details
• the (great) Australian adjective
• the (great) Australian salute
• the (great) god Bingo
• the Ham and Egg Parade
• the higher the fewer (answer to why is a mouse when it spins?)
• the history of the four kings (playing cards)
• the Kruschen feeling
• the land of fruits and nuts
• the land of Nod
• the last cab off the rank
• the (little) man in the boat
• the man on the Clapham omnibus
• the man outside Hoyt’s
• the men in (the) white coats
• the morning after the night before
• the next cab off the rank
• the night’s (only) a pup
• the nineteenth hole
• the only game in town
• the only pebble on the beach
• the opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings
• the order of the boot
• the patter of tiny feet
• the pen is mightier than the sword
• the penny dropped
• the Pest from the West
• the plot thickens
• the politics of the warm inner glow
• the proof of the pudding is in the eating
• the Queensland salute
• the real Simon Pure
• there’s no work in Bourke
• (there’s) trouble at t’mill
• the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing
• the river that flows upside down (the Yarra River)
• the road to hell is paved with good intentions
• the rough end of the pineapple
• the sharpest —— in the ——
• the skin of one’s teeth
• the Slough of Despond
• the straight and narrow
• the thick plottens
• the things I’ve done for England
• the things you see when you haven’t got your gun
• the toast of the town
• the Volvo set
• the whole boodle
• the whole box and dice
• the whole caboodle
• the witching hour
• the wogs begin at Calais
• (all) the world and his wife
• the world is one’s oyster
• the wrong side of the tracks
• (as) thick as thieves
• (as) thick as two short planks
• thick (the thick plottens)
• things are crook in Muswellbrook, or in Tallarook
• things are weak at Julia Creek
• the things you see when you haven’t got your gun
• thinking cap
• to think outside the box
• thirteen to the dozen
• this mortal coil
• three-martini lunch
• three on the hook and three on the book
• thrown out of better places than this
• a thumbnail dipped in tar
• thunder, to steal someone’s
• tickety-boo
• tiger (to have a tiger by the tail)
• tiger (to put a tiger in one’s tank)
• time (to take time by the forelock)
• time flies? you cannot: they go too fast
• tinker (not to give a tinker’s damn)
• tiswas
• tit for tat
• tittle – jot
• to a T – to a tee
• toad-in-the-hole – pigeon à la crapaudine
• toast (the toast of the town)
• toast, (as) warm as
• to toe the line
• toffee (not to be able to [verb] for toffee)
• toffee-nosed
• to toilet-paper
• Tom Mix in Cement
• Tom Pepper
• Tom Tiddler’s ground
• (with) tongue in cheek
• toot sweet
• tooth fairy
• top, to sleep like a
• Torygraph (nickname for The Daily Telegraph of London)
• Tory-lite
• to toss in a blanket
• to the nines, dressed
• tough titty
• tour d’ivoire – ivory tower
• town red, to paint the
• to T.P.
• to trail one’s coat
• to treat with ignore
• trick or treat
• trigger-happy
• trolley (off one’s trolley)
• trolley-dash
• (there’s) trouble at t’mill
• trumpery
• trumpeter (one’s trumpeter is dead)
• tulip
• turban
• turducken – rôti sans pareil
• to turn a blind eye
• T.W.O.C. (taking without owner’s consent)
• two is company, three is a crowd
• two left feet, or, two left hands
• two-martini lunch
• (Yorkshire) tyke

U

• uncle (Fiji uncle)
• underground mutton
• underpaid, underdressed, undersexed and under Eisenhower
• une tempête dans un verre d’eau
• to unfriend
• unshirted hell
• until hell freezes over
• until Nelson gets his eye back
• up in Annie’s room
• up the river
• up to dolly’s wax
• up to pussy’s bow
• useful idiot
• useful innocent

V

• valentine
• vanilla sex
• Vaseline Valley
• Vatican roulette
• a verandah over the toy shop
• Vicar of Bray
• vinegar trip
• Virginia fence (to make a Virginia fence)
• virtus dormitiva
• the Volvo set

W

• to wait for a dead man’s shoes
• Wales
• to walk a crack – to walk one’s chalks
• Wardour-Street English
• (as) warm as toast
• to warm the cockles of one’s heart
• warts and all
• to wash the milk off one’s liver
• watching paint dry, like
• we aim to please (you aim too, please)
• to wear cotton drawers
• to wear army boots
• well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs
• were you born in a barn/a field/a sawmill/a tent?
• wet blanket
• to wet one’s whistle
• we’ve got the time if you’ve got the inclination
• a whale of a (good) time
• what can you expect from a hog but a grunt?
• what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander
• when Nelson gets his eye back
• when push comes to shove
• where did you get your licence?
• where’s your white stick?
• where the bugs wear clogs
• where the monkey put(s) the nuts
• where there’s muck, there’s brass
• where the rubber meets the road
• white ants
• white poppy
• (white) rabbit(s) (good-luck incantation)
• the whole boodle
• the whole caboodle
• who’s for tennis?
• who’s robbing this coach?
• who’s robbing this train?
• who’s ‘she’—the cat’s mother?
• who stole your scone?
• why is a mouse when it spins?
• (as) wicked as a meat-ax(e)
• widow’s cruse
• Will (black, or dark, over Bill’s, or Will’s, mother’s)
• william-nilliam
• windfall tax
• window
• winedot
• wink (a nod is as good as a wink)
• winter of discontent (the winter of 1978-79 in Britain)
• wishbone – merrythought
• wishful thinker – wishful thinking
• witches’ knickers
• witching hour
• Witham
• within a bull’s roar of
• without a bone in the truck
• (with) tongue in cheek
• wogs begin at Calais
• wokerati
• wood-and-water joey
• woodshed, something nasty in the
• wool (to pull the wool over someone’s eyes)
• a word in your shell-like
• the world is one’s oyster
• worm’s-eye view
• to worship under Dr. Greenfield
• wouldn’t say boo to a goose
• wouldn’t work in an iron lung
• would you buy a used, or a second-hand, car from this man?
• wreck (like the wreck of the Hesperus)
• wrong tree, to be barking up the

X

• Xmas

Y

• yabber
• ye gods and little fishes
• yellow peril
• Yorkshire tyke
• you can call me anything, so long as you don’t call me late to dinner
• you can’t have your cake and eat it
• you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear
• you can’t tell the mind of a squid
• you’ll be smoking next
• (you’re) damned if you do and damned if you don’t
• you’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself
• your head’s on fire
• your mother wears army boots
• you, too, can have a body like mine
• you’ve shot your granny

Z

• zero tolerance