BTW

Last I heard, the books could not be copied in any part nor seen by non-licensees. BTW – Irma Biren has been promoted (she deserved it) and the new contact would be Francine Glick.

1981 June 14, harpo!ber, “Lion's Book”, in fa.unix-wizards (Usenet), retrieved 2016-07-02, message-ID <anews.Aharpo.261>:

BTW – By The Way

1989 May 8, Vince Perriello (Editor in Chief), “Volume 6, Number 19”, in FidoNews, archived from the original on 2005-01-18:

(Internet slang, text messaging) Initialism of by the way.


IME

(Internet slang) Initialism of in my experience.


percent

From New Latin per centum (“by the hundred”).

By how many percent did the cancer survival rate for breast cancer increase by 2008?

2014, Alan Tussy, Diane Koenig, Basic Mathematics for College Students with Early Integers, →ISBN, page 637:


ND

(academia) Initialism of no data (used to indicate where information was not available, especially in tables, rather than leaving a blank).


IMO

(informal, Internet slang, text messaging) Initialism of in my opinion.


on hold

This project is on hold until we can get more information.

Plans to build a western rail route into Heathrow Airport have been put on hold, with Network Rail saying that staff working on the scheme have been moved to other projects.

2021 May 5, Paul Clifton, “Network News: Heathrow Western Rail Access scheme 'on hold'”, in RAIL, number 930, page 26:

(idiomatic) Delayed; postponed; suspended.

I have been on hold for 45 minutes listening to a recording about how important my call is to them.

I have a book on hold for me at the library.

Now James Kellaris, a professor of marketing at the University of Cincinnati, reports that the sexes respond differently to onhold^([sic]) music.


before dark

I think you should finish mowing the lawn before dark.


per annum

Borrowed from Late Latin per annum, English from the 16th century.

Areas of no more than ten acres of crown land may be granted as bee-arms on annual licenses, the rent being one shilling an acre per annum.

1918, International Review of Agricultural Economics, volume 9, page 917:


at least

I couldn't count them all, but I think there must have been at least 500 people in attendance.

You could even be discovered, become a movie star, or at least see one.

1997 May 14, Brian Helgeland, Curtis Hanson, L.A. Confidential, spoken by Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito), Regency Enterprises; distributed by Warner Bros.:


under one's thumb

She has the entire crew under her thumb. They would do anything for her.

...when you find a man under his wife's thumb you can always be sure there's a soft spot in him somewhere.

(idiomatic) Completely controlled by someone; at someone's command.


against the grain

/əˈɡɛnst ðə ɡɹeɪn/

(woodworking, of sanding or planing a piece of wood) Preventing a smooth, level surface from being formed by raising the nap of the wood or causing larger splinters to form ahead of the cutting tool below the cutting surface.

By going against the grain and going to work nude, you've made yourself a laughing stock.

Get the thinkers out into the open like Vidal and Buckley, a really radical idea, against the grain.

2015 August 1, Ed Vulliamy, quoting Robert Gordon, “‘Don’t call me a crypto-Nazi!’ The lost heart of political debate”, in The Guardian:

For Nabiullina, the developments unpick almost a decade of work going against the grain of Putin’s increasing global isolation by opening up the economy.

2022 March 5, Richard Partington, “Russia’s central bank head ‘is mourning for her economy’”, in The Guardian:

(idiomatic) Contrary to what is expected; especially, of behavior different from what society expects.

It went much against the grain with him.

Say, you chose him / More after our commandment than as guided / By your own true affections, and that your minds, / Preoccupied with what you rather must do / Than what you should, made you against the grain / To voice him consul: lay the fault on us.

c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

(idiomatic) Unwillingly, reluctantly; contrary to one's nature.

In all ordinary processes of grinding, the friction of the rapidly revolving millstones against the grain, or even of the stones against each other, develops a large amount of heat, so that the crushed wheat comes from the stones quite hot

1879, R. C. Kedzie, “The Adulteration and Deterioration of Food”, in Annual Report of the National Board of Health, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 138:

There simply was not enough grain in each elevator to satisfy the known claims against the grain.

1983, US Congress, Grain Elevator Bankruptcy, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 134:

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see against, the, grain.


least

2019 December, Justin Blackburn, The Bisexual Christian Suburban Failure Enlightening Bipolar Blues, page 79:
What a stupid white privileged POS I am! Least I call myself out.


in spirit

I can’t make it to the party, but I’ll be there in spirit.

For I in spirit saw thee move
Thro’ circles of the bounding sky;
Week after week: the days go by:
Come quick, thou bringest all I love.

1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XVII, page 28:

The newer works differ from the older ones in spirit.


like two peas in a pod

(simile, of two things) Very similar; a couple made for each other.


on sale

In 1866 Colonel J. F. Meline noted that the rebozo had almost disappeared in Santa Fe and that hoop skirts, on sale in the stores, were being widely used.

1948, Carey McWilliams, North from Mexico / The Spanish-Speaking People of The United States, J. B. Lippincott Company, page 75:

(British, Australia) Available for purchase.

(US, Australia) Available for purchase at reduced prices.

on offer

available for purchase at reduced prices


on the bubble

US, late 20th century, from Indiana motor racing.

Smith was on the bubble but lost out when Jones was faster by a tenth of a second.

(motor racing) Holding the last qualifying position with qualification still in progress, and thus liable to lose that position.

The Knights had been on the bubble for the tournament, but played their way in by winning their last five games.

Most players play pretty loose on the bubble, much looser than they theoretically should, and even if I saw an opponent sitting out a few hands, it's more likely that he just hit a run of low cards than that he turned into a locksmith at this stage.

2006, Dan Harrington, Bill Robertie, Harrington on Hold 'Em::

Lewis and Marc Luttrell are on the bubble because they have yet to make the timed run in Third Phase, but they make this one.

2009, Dick Couch, The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class, page 228:

(sports) Having qualification for an event depend on the upcoming performances of other competitors; hence, at risk of being eliminated, and reversely, being close to qualification; on the verge.

The new bond issue now appears to be on the bubble, with support eroding.

Among other aspects of bubble measurement, the researchers were interested in measuring the size of the bubble with a laser scattering technique. A laser is shone on the bubble, which scatters the light.

2004, David D. Moon, Carbon Dating, Cold Fusion, and a Curve Ball, page 109:

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see on, bubble.


from scratch

From the scratch drawn in the ground serving as the starting line of a foot race. A runner “starting from scratch” received no handicap, but started at the beginning of the course.

There were so many errors in the program that the programmer decided to rewrite it from scratch.

When the writer finished writing his book, it was stolen and now he has to rewrite it from scratch.

He had no money and no rich friends, so he had to build his business from scratch.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

The advantages are that you may be able to build your services more quickly because you would not be starting from scratch, and you would proved a very friendly experience for your users, potentially eliminating or at least decreasing a variety of status inquiries and the possibility of missubmitting requests.

2006, Ioana V. Bazavan, Ian Lim, Information Security Cost Management, page 198:

(idiomatic) From the beginning; starting with no advantage or prior preparation.

She said she wanted to build a new house from scratch.

He was out of pancake mix so he had to make the batter from scratch.

He sat there Friday night and built an entire model ship from scratch.

"By having a research and design facility in north Derbyshire, we will once again build trains from scratch on our shores."

(idiomatic) From basic materials or raw ingredients.


down to a science

I have my painting technique down to a science.

Perfected; to the point of practiced ease and confidence.


on fire

From Middle English on fier, on fijre, on fire, on fyire, on fyre.

If the wind picks up and the flames spread, the whole town could go on fire.

Anytime I am on fire with anxiety about the future, or totally freaking out that I am not being seen, heard, or treated fairly based on my old wounds, it is easy for me to RECOGNIZE that my Character 2 has flared right up in an attempt to not only protect me but help me get my needs met.

2022 [2021], Jill Bolte Taylor, “The Brain Huddle: Your Power Tool for Peace”, in Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life, Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, →ISBN, page 160:

(idiomatic) Overwhelmed with emotion; beside oneself.

“I'm on fire with an idea,” the 48-year-old businessman proclaimed with excitement similar to that which he projected in 1971 when his company became the first predominantly Black-owned corporation to be listed on the American Stock Exchange.

1975 November 6, Robert E. Johnson, “The Prodigal Returns To His First Love: The Beauty Industry”, in Jet, volume 49, number 7, page 21:

(idiomatic) Excited, enthusiastic or passionate.

That striker has scored four goals so far – he's on fire!

(idiomatic) Doing very well; achieving good results at a rapid rate.

He locks us into a crouched position that results in muscle failure of the quads, hamstrings, and calves. It hurts. We raise ten-pound rubber rifles and hold them parallel to the ground. Our legs are on fire, then our arms too.

(hyperbolic, of a body part) Experiencing a burning-like sensation, especially "the burn" (from buildup of lactic acid)


in the closet

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-in the closet.wav

pass

to be accepted by others as a member of a group one would not usually be regarded as belonging to

Was he in control of that narrative? Most likely not. If he’d had the choice, he would have stayed in the closet.

2023 October 6, Ryan Gilbey, “The double life of Rock Hudson: ‘Let’s be frank, he was a horndog!’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

romantic orientation
romantic orientation

(colloquial) Not open about one's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.

She's in the closet about her gambling addiction.

She's in the gambling-addiction closet.

(colloquial, by extension) Not open about some feature of one's life; often construed with about.


in person

Have you ever seen a celebrity in person?

He had seen the burger on TV, but in person it looked so much juicier.

The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track.[…]Their example was followed by others at a time when the master of Mohair was superintending in person the docking of some two-year-olds, and equally invisible.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, pages 58–59:

With one's own body and physical presence; not through media, a representative, or indirectly.


in the flesh

[S]he [Edwina, mother of Tennessee Williams] was indeed Amanda [Wingfield, character in Williams' play The Glass Menagerie] in the flesh: a doughty chatterbox from Ohio who adopted the manner of a Southern belle and eschewed both drink and sex to the greatest extent possible.

2014 November 14, Blake Bailey, “'Tennessee Williams,' by John Lahr [print version: Theatrical victory of art over life, International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 13]”, in The New York Times:

(religion, especially Christianity) incarnate (of God or a deity: having assumed an earthly body)


in the red

From the standard accounting practice of using red ink to denote negative values, especially a net loss. The first known written use of the phrase is from the "Wise-crack dictionary" (1926) by George H. Maines and Bruce Grant.http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/202000.html

The figures are going to be in the red this year.

(idiomatic, accounting) Having net losses; in debt.


on end

These batteries last for hours on end.

The arrangement of some seats facing and some one behind the other, bus fashion, seems a sensible compromise; I am one of those who do not enjoy staring at my fellow travellers for perhaps hours on end.

1964 July, Mary Allen, “A Woman's View of the New Coaches”, in Modern Railways, page 9:

(idiomatic) without interruption, without stopping, continuously

How silent, on the other hand, lie all Cotton-trades and such like; not a steeple-chimney yet got on end from sea to sea!

1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “chapter 5, ’’Twelfth Century’’”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk):

When he was dried he struggled into his shirt. Then, ruddy and shiny, with hair on end, and his flannelette shirt hanging over his pit-trousers, he stood warming the garments he was going to put on.

1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 8, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:


by default

If we don't do something, they'll win by default.

No one could think of a better name, so we chose "Strawman" by default.

If he wins an election, it will only be by default.


on the piss

From on (“regularly taking”) + the + slang piss (“any alcoholic drink”).

We're going out on the piss tonight. Want to come?

Life is meaningless, when I've been on the piss.

2008, Colin Shaddick, Isn't Sex Noisy, →ISBN, page 50:

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, slang, vulgar) Drinking alcoholic beverages to excess.


on the game

UK late-19th century. However, the game as a euphemism for sexual activity dates to at least Troilus and Cressida (1602): "Set them down / For sluttish spoils of opportunity / And daughters of the game." Compare with the similar euphemism sport.

Oh please go on the game. It's a steady job and you'd be working from home.

1986 January 9, Ben Elton, Richard Curtis, Bells (Blackadder II), episode 1, spoken by Kate's Father (Edward Jewesbury):

What's he want it for anyway? Don't tell me he's going on the game.

1990 November 18, Andrew Davies, Michael Dobbs, House of Cards, season 1, episode 1:

(UK, idiomatic, slang, euphemistic) Working as a prostitute.


in perpetuity

bequeathed to the nation in perpetuity

The interest payments on consols were in perpetuity.

Queen Victoria travelled to Chingford on May 6, 1882, to dedicate Epping Forest to the public in perpetuity.

1952 December, 'Icarus', “The Chingford Branch”, in Railway Magazine, page 793:

desire happiness in perpetuity

the annuity was in perpetuity


in the buff

From buff (“bare skin”, literally “brownish yellow”), an allusion to the color of tanned light skin.

She was in the buff on the beach.

The streaker ran across the playing field in the buff.

Not to mention, nudity can be just plain convenient. “Laundry is minimal,” Schulte notes. It also doesn’t hurt that being in the buff spices up his workday.

2021 October 18, Ian Lecklitzner, “The Inevitable Rise of the Work-From-Home Nudist”, in MEL Magazine:


in the nick of time

He finished writing his paper and slid it under the door just in the nick of time.

(idiomatic) At the last possible moment; at the last minute.


out of the box

/ʌʊt əv ðə bɑːks/

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: See out of, the, box.

This software has to work out of the box, without any fancy installation.

As well as trade union opposition when the new Class 195s arrived, they could not work 'out of the box' due to gauge clearance issues.

2019 November 6, “Industry Insider: Blame the policymakers”, in Rail, page 76:

(idiomatic, of a product) Immediately, without intervention from the customer.

od výroby

(idiom) immediately, without intervention from the customer

He started out with the rather obvious alternative of talking to Junior; Hesh’s scheme was more imaginative; and Tony’s idea of torching the restaurant really is out of the box.

2004, Deborrah Himsel, Leadership Sopranos Style: How to Become a More Effective Boss, Kaplan Publishing, →ISBN, page 135:

Mom and dad didn’t have a ready answer to Mort’s out of the box idea, but Mickey did.

2005, John Campbell Self, Faeries’ Dance, Cupid’s Dream, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 16:

She: You’re not trying to think out of the box!

2007, Allan Wolf, Zane's Trace, Candlewick Press, →ISBN, page 63:

(idiomatic) Outside the box; unconventionally: outside the limits of conventional thinking.


en route

From French en route, from en (“in”) + route (“route”).

The shipment is en route to the buyer.

Italy's potential opponents in Sunday's final might hope this game has taken a lot out of Mancini's men but you would not bank on it from a side who have simply got better and better, now adding Spain to Belgium as they claim victims of the highest class en route to the showpiece.

2021 July 6, Phil McNulty, “Italy beat Spain on penalties: 'Pure theatre as Italy present formidable obstacle in final'”, in BBC Sport:

The army advanced, capturing several cities en route.


around the Horn

(US, Navy, idiomatic) Via shipboard communications, formerly metal tubes with earhorn-like ends.

Following the extremely hazardous naval route around Cape Horn, the southernmost point in South America.


around the horn

Alternative letter-case form of around the Horn.


with child

Replaced earlier mid child. Compare Danish and Swedish med barn.

I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.

c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

[N]othing vvas more frightful to me than his Careſſes, and the Apprehenſions of being vvith Child again by him, vvas ready to throvv me into Fits; […]

1722 (indicated as 1721), [Daniel Defoe], The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. […], London: […] W[illiam Rufus] Chetwood, […]; and T. Edling, […], published 1722, →OCLC, page 118:

I should have had two children, but I find myself with only one. Yet he spends his time with other women who are already with child.

1999, Rebecca Hourwich Reyher, Zulu Woman:


on the same page

I want to make sure we're all on the same page with the game plan for the Acme account.

Our unions want to see their members protected, and we have no desire to get into conflict with them on this. We're all on the same page.

2021 July 28, Paul Clifton, “Network News: Confusion and dissent over face mask requirements”, in RAIL, number 936, page 9:

He later emailed OpenAI’s executives, telling them that he had reprimanded Ms. Toner. “I did not feel we’re on the same page on the damage of all this,” he wrote.

2023 December 9, Tripp Mickle, Cade Metz, Mike Isaac, Karen Weise, quoting Sam Altman, “Inside OpenAI’s Crisis Over the Future of Artificial Intelligence”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(idiomatic) In broad agreement or sharing a common general understanding or knowledge (common in office environments).

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: on the same page.


on its merits

The proposal should be discussed on its merits.

(idiomatic) Considering only intrinsic good points and bad points, without prejudice or other considerations, such as procedural ones.


fo shizzle

Blend of for sure + -izzle (rhyming ending). Popularized by rap artist Snoop Dogg; see -izzle for details. Fo shizzle is a direct derivative of Fa Sheezy popularized by E40. They both share the same meaning are used interchangeably. Both words first appeared on media in 1996 on Bay Area Rapper E40's "Rapper's Ball".

blend

2001, Shawn Corey “Jay-Z” Carter, “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”, The Blueprint, Roc-A-Fella and Island Def Jam
H to the izz-O, V to the izz-A
Fo’ shizzle my nizzle used to dribble down in VA

2002, Calvin Cordozar “Snoop Dogg” Broadus, Jr., “Beautiful”, Paid tha Co$t to Be da Bo$$, Doggystyle Records, Priority Records, and Capitol Records
Guy on phone: Yo dogg we on the way to do the video
Snoop: Fo shizzle!

Conversely, I was also a little jealous because it did sound a bit cool to have a church named after me, complete with my photo on the side of buses so that everyone would know that I was pastor izzle fo’ shizzle.

2006, Mark Driscoll, Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church, Zondervan, →ISBN, page 49:

(slang, hip-hop) For sure; of course; right on


in Dutch

Thirteen youthful nurses at the Worcester City Hospital enriched a local barber to the extent of $13 a few days ago when they had their hair bobbed and now the entire 13 are very much in dutch with the authorities at the hospital.

1923 July 27, “Hospital Puts Ban upon Bobbed Hair”, in The Day, USA, retrieved 2011-08-29, page 9:

“And for that amount of money you're willing to get yourself in Dutch with half the law enforcement of this county?”

1939, Raymond Chandler, chapter 18, in The Big Sleep:

He got in dutch with City Manager George Schrader when he made some ill-chosen remarks.

1988 April 14, Rena Pederson, “Police Turmoil Isn't News”, in Dallas Morning News, retrieved 2011-08-29:

Don Juan: Well, think how you would feel if you were made to take off this mask that you are wearing.
Jack Mickler: Oh, well, our masks really get us in dutch, don't they? How long you been wearing yours?

(idiomatic, dated, Canada, US) In trouble or in disfavor.

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see in, Dutch.


pro bono

/prəʊ ˈbəʊnəʊ/

Abbreviated from Latin pro bono publico (“for the public good”).

der

The firm currently has about half a dozen pro bono cases at any one time.

After he retired, he offered representation pro bono from time to time.

(law, medicine) Without charging a fee, done without fee, generally for clients or patients of limited means.


on the carpet

That same evening the treaty of marriage was brought upon the carpet, and by means of Mr. Pickle and the lieutenant settled to the satisfaction of all parties, without the intervention of lawyers […].

1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 7, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume I, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:

Nor is this tribute to the reclaimed animals in question so wide a digression into the realms of Natural History as it may, at first sight, appear to be; for the present business of these pages in with the dragon who had his retreat in Mr Pecksniff’s neighbourhood, and that courteous animal being already on the carpet, there is nothing in the way of its immediate transaction.

1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC:

Under consideration; subject to discussion or deliberation.

Whenever a policeman made a mistake he was either brought on the carpet before the Mayor or rebuked by the Magistrate.

1915 January 4, “Ellison Must Go, Police Now Think”, in New York Times, retrieved 2008-09-12, page 18:

But long, long ago an enthusiastic reporter called it a "fairy palace," and the office building on the west side was once a church. Hence, in North British phraseology, to "gang tae the Kirk" meant to be had up on the carpet.

1941 January, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The Scottish Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 3:

Policewoman Mitchell was on the carpet only three weeks ago for appearing as a character witness for three burglary suspects.

1950 March 28, “Policewoman Suspended Over Delay”, in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, retrieved 2008-09-12, page 1:


at the best of times

When that gentleman came from the city, and was welcomed in the drawing-room by his daughters and the elegant Miss Wirt, they saw at once by his face—which was puffy, solemn, and yellow at the best of times—and by the scowl and twitching of his black eye-brows, that the heart within his large white waistcoat was disturbed and uneasy.

1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Sentimental and Otherwise”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 109:

Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best of times, but it would seem to have been an unusually thin wine that he sold at this time.

1859, Charles Dickens, “Knitting”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book II (The Golden Thread), page 108:

She could only reply that I was welcome to any thing she could tell me in return for the kindness I had shown to Anne. But as she was not very quick and ready, at the best of times, in talking to strangers, she would beg me to put her in the right way, and to say where I wished her to begin.

1859 November 26 – 1860 August 25, [William] Wilkie Collins, “Hartright’s Narrative”, in The Woman in White. […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, […], published 1860, →OCLC, part II, section VI, page 191:

In the case of the Cusack-Bremmils, this reaction did not set in till the third year after the wedding. Bremmil was hard to hold at the best of times; but he was a beautiful husband until the baby died, and Mrs. Bremmil wore black, and grew thin, and mourned as if the bottom of the Universe had fallen out.

1886 November 17, Rudyard Kipling, “Three and—an Extra”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co.; London: W. Thacker & Co., published 1888, →OCLC, page 8:

His shoes were covered with mud, and he was looking very rough and touzled; but then he had never been a very smart man, the Badger, at the best of times.

1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, “‘Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears’”, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 261:

Opening a new railway is no mean feat at the best of times, but the Elizabeth Line had its own challenges.

2023 October 4, Richard Foster, “New operator enters at number one”, in RAIL, number 993, page 33:

(idiomatic) Even under the most favourable conditions.

parhaimmillaankin

even under the most favourable conditions


at random

It was a long, difficult business, for the coins were of all countries and sizes — doubloons, and louis d’ors, and guineas, and pieces of eight, and I know not what besides, all shaken together at random.

1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:


for free

We got all our food for free, it was included in the contract.

Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free

1973, Billy Joel (lyrics and music), “Piano Man”, Billy Joel (music), performed by Billy Joel:

When they fixed that one bug, we got this new software feature for free.

(figuratively) Without effort; as a useful side-effect of something that was to be done anyway.


at the end of the day

→ German: am Ende des Tages (calque)

→ Spanish: al final del día (calque)

Christ’s flock is but a little flock, comparatively conſidered, Luke xii. 32. &c. They are but little in reſpect of their numbers. Indeed abſtractly conſidered, at the end of the day, they will make an “innumerable company, which no man can number;” but, viewed in compariſon of the wicked, they are but few:[…]

c. 1737–1754, Ebenezer Erskine, “The Sovereignty of Zion’s King. Being the Substance of Several Sermons, on Psal. ii. 6. The First Preached at Perth Before the Associate Presbytery, Thursday, Oct. 13. 1737, and Afterwards Enlarged upon at Stirling, for Some Sabbaths Thereafter.”, in The Whole Works of the Late Rev. Mr. Ebenezer Erskine, Minister of the Gospel at Stirling; Consisting of Sermons and Discourses, on the Most Important and Interesting Subjects, volume II, Edinburgh: […] D. Schaw and Co., […] for Alex. M‘Leran, […], published 1798, section “The Second Sermon on This Text”, page 530:

Arms control was always something between a sham and a sideshow. . . . [A]t the end of the day, a democratic Russia integrated into the West becomes no more a nuclear threat to us than Britain or France.

1991 August 5, Charles Krauthammer, “Why Arms Control Is Obsolete”, in Time:

At the end of the day, it is commodities that will have the biggest impact on the Canadian dollar over the next year.

2009 February 24, Levi Folk, “'Goldilocks' dollar is happy here”, in Financial Post, Canada, retrieved 2009-02-25:


all over the board

The numbers I got for that were all over the board.

All over the map
all over the map#English


in two shakes of a lamb's tail

I'll be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.


on purpose

That wasn't an accident! You did it on purpose!

(idiomatic) By design, as opposed to by accident; intentionally; deliberately.

Blifil bowed and stammered, and looked like a fool; but Western, without giving him time to form a speech for the purpose, answered, “Well, well, I am to blame, if you will, I always am, certainly; but come, let the girl be fetched back again, or let Mr Blifil go to her.——He’s come up on purpose, and there is no time to be lost.”

1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

I send this to the town, on purpose to have it reach you by the earliest post […].

1792, Charlotte Smith, Desmond, Broadview, published 2001, page 260:

(now rare) In order to (do something); with the objective that.


for the nonce

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-for the nonce.wav

From Middle English for þe nones, for þe nanes, a rebracketing of earlier for þen ānes (literally “for the once”).

That will do for the nonce, but we'll need a better answer for the long term.

'Idiot!' exclaimed the doctor, who for the nonce was not capable of more than such spasmodic attempts at utterance.

1857, Anthony Trollope, chapter 6, in Barchester Towers:

For the nonce he was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and means during which Stephen repeatedly yawned.

1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

'We part, then, for the nonce, do we?'
'I fear so, sir.'
'You take the high road, and self taking the low road, as it were?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I shall miss you, Jeeves.'
'Thank you, sir.'

1946, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 11, in Joy in the Morning, →OCLC:

(idiomatic) For the time being, for now, with the expectation that the situation may change.


around the wicket

(cricket) Bowling the ball from the side of the wicket that puts the bowler's bowling hand farther from the wicket


on the nail

Allegedly from the tradition of striking bargains by placing cash on the nails in Bristol, Limerick and Liverpool. The Oxford English Dictionary, however, cites an Anglo-Norman phrase from c. 1360, "payer sur le ungle" to pay on the (finger)nail meaning "to pay immediately and in full", and the Latin "ad unguem", exactly. It quotes parallel usages from 17th century French, Dutch and German sources and adds that "N.E.D. (1906) notes that: ‘the explanations associating it with certain pillars at the Exchange of Limerick or Bristol are too late to be of any authority in deciding the question’."

Tell me, have you a mind to anything in the Doctor's book? Speak the word, and I will help you to it upon the nail.

1596, Thomas Nashe, Have With You To Saffron Walden:

You shall have ten thousand pounds on the nail, and I will take you back to London with me besides and teach you what is fortune.

1845, Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, Or, The Two Nations:


at first

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

“Well,” I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, “he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one.” ¶ “So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?” ¶ I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 51:

At first I was afraid, I was petrified / Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side

1978, Dino Fekaris, Freddie Perren (lyrics and music), “I Will Survive”, performed by Gloria Gaynor:


beyond the pale

Google Ngram Viewer
Oxford English Dictionary

From beyond + the + pale (“wooden stake, picket; fence made from wooden stakes, palisade; bounds, limits; territory or defensive area within a specific boundary or under a given jurisdiction”), suggesting that anything outside an authority’s jurisdiction is uncivilized.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there is insufficient evidence that the term originally referred to the English Pale, the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages; or to the Pale of Settlement (Russian: Черта́ осе́длости (Čertá osédlosti)) which existed from 1791 to 1917 in the Russian Empire, where Jewish people were mostly relegated to living. The first attestation of this English translation of the Russian in the OED is 1890. The Google Ngram Viewer shows a fivefold increase in the use of the expression from 1801 to 1864.

Coordinate term: over the edge

The very date which put them beyond the pale as belligerents was that which they seem to have chosen in order to prove what active and valiant soldiers they still remained.

1900, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Great Boer War, page 409:

Socially Mack and the boys were beyond the pale. Sam Malloy didn't speak to them as they went by the boiler. They drew into themselves and no one could foresee how they would come out of the cloud. For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. This last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.

1945, John Steinbeck, Cannery Row, page 105:

1951, William O. Douglas, quoted in 2013, Whitney Strub, Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right, page 43,
“The teaching of methods of terror and other seditious conduct should be beyond the pale,” he continued, adding as an afterthought, “along with obscenity and immorality.”

For most British voters – the people whom Labour claimed to represent – Labour was, quite simply, ‘beyond the pale’.

2012, Patricia Hewitt, “3: The Start of Labour's Long March:1985-1992”, in Dennis Kavanagh, editor, Philip Gould: An Unfinished Life, page 42:

(idiomatic) Of a person or their behaviour: outside the bounds of what is acceptable, or regarded as good judgment, morality, ethics, etc.

逾越常軌

of a person or their behaviour: outside the bounds of what is acceptable, or regarded as good judgment, morality, etc.

Are they to be placed like devils beyond the pale of all human charities, and to be denied all kindly and benevolent offices?

1812, Edward William Grinfield, The Nature and Extent of the Christian Dispensation with Reference to the Salvability of the Heathen, page 35:

[…]but he was essentially a lone traveller in areas beyond the pale of human society.

2000, Raechelle Rubinstein, Beyond the Realm of the Senses: The Balinese Ritual of Kakawin Composition, page 103:

That they had evinced no desire to be Britons, and had made manifest their aversion by holding tenaciously to their Catholicism, only confirmed the wisdom of their consignment beyond the pale.

2012, David M. Emmons, Beyond the American Pale: The Irish in the West, 1845-1910, page 4:

In addition it calls into question the common assumption that the holocaust destroyed British anti-Semitism or at least pushed it beyond the pale of respectability.

2012, Tony Kushner, Kenneth Lunn, The Politics of Marginality: Race, the Radical Right and Minorities in Twentieth Century Britain, page 143:

We can even discern the outlines of the hidden and disguised religious character of the argument, for the move that Broad makes is not so much to debate Spinoza but to put him beyond the pale of acceptable, legitimate philosophical opinion.

2013, Heidi Ravven, The Self Beyond Itself: An Alternative History of Ethics, the New Brain Sciences, and the Myth of Free Will, unnumbered page:

Used other than as an idiom; generally followed by of: beyond the extent or limits.


without prejudice

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-without prejudice.wav

sitoumuksetta

law: allowing return to earlier position

(formal) Not affecting nor considering other possibly related issues.

(law) Without affecting a legal interest.

(law) A term used to allow a statement or proposal in communications, while allowing the party to return to their original position without being impeded by the described statement or proposal.

(formal, procedural) Choosing not to take a stance, at least for now, without binding future decisions.

Choosing not to take a stance, at least for now, without binding future decisions.
 Example: resolving that a sea snake should be cooked before eating, without prejudice as to whether or not a sea snake will be considered a 'fish'


in the offing

They could see that the ship was waiting in the offing.

There were several small islands in the offing.

Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the landlord cried, "That's the Grampus's crew. I seed her reported in the offing this morning; a three years' voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah, boys; now we'll have the latest news from the Feegees."

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 3, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 15:

If the ship that bore the sacred flame arrived too soon, it might not put in to shore, but had to cruise in the offing till the nine days were expired.

1900, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 3, page 252:

(literally, of a ship, landmass, etc.) Within the area of the sea known as the offing; at a considerable distance from land, but visible from shore, often in reference to an approaching ship.

We have known wives to forget that they had husbands,[…] especially when they supposed that a tax bill or a notification to do military duty might be in the offing!

1850, Sylvester Breakmore Beckett, The Portland Reference Book and City Directory:

The Ship of the Spring in the offing at last! / Oh, rude blew the hindering gales, / But perfumes entrancing, the danger o'erpast, / Are wafted afar, from her sails!

1917 May 5, Florence Van Leer Earle Coates, “In the Offing”, in The Minaret:

He [countertenor Anthony Roth Constanzo] also enjoys being the catalyst whereby opera fertilises other art forms: recently, he's collaborated with Japanese kabuki actors, and a project with dancers from New York City Ballet is in the offing.

2014 August 8, Rupert Christiansen, “The truth about falsettos”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review):

He has a happy home life, two sitcoms on the go and a new book in the offing. So why is the comedian, actor and Observer columnist still so crotchety?

2019 November 3, Andrew Anthony, “David Mitchell: ‘I have no reason to have these apocalyptic musings’”, in The Observer, →ISSN:

(figurative) Soon to come; likely to happen; in the foreseeable future; projected to occur; on the horizon; in the wind.

在不遠的將來

in the foreseeable future; on the horizon

The moment I saw the man standing there, registering respectful attention, a weight seemed to roll off my mind. I felt like a lost child who spots his father in the offing. There was something about him that gave me confidence.

1919, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “Leave it to Jeeves”, in My Man Jeeves, London: George Newnes:


up the duff

Unknown; the OED states that the phrase was originally Australian. Possibly related to in the pudding club (duff is a type of pudding) and thus related to dough.

Lynda up the duff—what odds do you put on that, eh, Mr Clever Dick, eh? That's shut his gob. That's put a crease in his brand-new suit.

1987, David Leland, Wish You Were Here, spoken by Lynda Mansell (Emily Lloyd):

At 19, he was married (‘only because she was up the duff’ he explains gallantly).

1994, The Daily Telegraph, quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, page 88, 2nd edition, 2005:

“Well, when he found out that my gran was up the duff, he went back to his native Norway (or it might have been Sweden)[…].”

1998, Tracey Ullman, Tracey Takes On..., page 98:

It just means that some daft wee hairy that gets knocked up the duff has tae get oan the bus tae Carlisle tae get cleaned oot.

1998, Irvine Welsh, Filth, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 191:

The great coalface of fuckwits; the fly-by-nighters, who do their five years in Bondi, befriend a Roosters player, get a good coke dealer, meet some tight westie bitch who′s moved here while she works a job in PR, they fall in love, she gets up the duff and then they have to buy a house in Condell Park and they′re gone[…].

2008, Sam de Brito, The Lost Boys, page 14:

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, colloquial, slang) Pregnant.


like clockwork

run like clockwork

You will find him there waiting for the bus every day at 4:14 pm, like clockwork.

(simile) With perfect regularity and precision; faultless.


over the moon

From the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle.

Winemakers are over the moon to be able to showcase the individual nuances within their vineyards.

2003 December 14, Kate Drake, “Champagne Supernova”, in Time, archived from the original on 2012-03-29:

Well, I’ve liked Star Wars since the late ’70s. I liked it a lot. But I’m now over the moon about Star Wars, and I think a couple things happened.

2016 June 2, Alex McLevy, quoting Cass Sunstein, “Cass Sunstein explains why Star Wars is like America”, in AV Club:


in silico

/ɪn ˈsɪlɪkəʊ/

From in and silicon (from Latin silex (“flint, pebble, stone; crag, rock”)) + Latin -ō, by analogy with English in vitro (“in glass, referring to an experiment conducted in a test tube”). The silico component refers to silicon chips which were used for computing at the time when the term was coined.

cog

He was able to dissect the frog in silico.

In the future, computers can be used as experimental tools, generating a new source of investigation of living organisms, their study in silico (in contrast to in vivo or in vitro).

1996, Antoine Danchin, “On Genomes and Cosmologies”, in Julio Collado-Vides, Boris Magasanik, Temple F[erris] Smith, editors, Integrative Approaches to Molecular Biology, Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press, →ISBN, page 92:

The term "virtual screening" (or in silico screening) was first reported in the scientific literature in 1997[…]; it can be defined as a set of computer methods that analyzes large databases or collections of compounds in order to identify and prioritize likely hit candidates[…]. In silico screening search can be performed on libraries that contain physically existing compounds or on virtual libraries, and thus on compounds that are not yet synthesized. […] [I]t should be noted that in silico screening goes much beyond number crunching, it helps to generate ideas, to reduce the cost and to gain knowledge.

2016, Bruno O. Villotriex, Melaine A. Kuenemann, David Lagorce, Olivier Sperandio, Maria A. Miteva, “In Silico Approaches Assisting the Rational Design of Low Molecular Weight Protein–Protein Interaction Modulators”, in Claudio N. Cavasotto, editor, In Silico Drug Discovery and Design: Theory, Methods, Challenges, and Applications, Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, →ISBN, page 460:

There is an increasing number of in silico models for toxicological endpoints. Some of these models offer significant benefits over existing in vivo or in vitro models. First, they require no materials and will make a prediction from the chemical structure alone. Once the models are built, they are usually fast and cheap to run. […]

[2017], D. Bower, K. P. Cross, S. Escher, G. J. Myatt, D. P. Quigley, “In Silico Toxicology: An Overview of Toxicity Databases, Prediction Methodologies, and Expert Review”, in Dale E. Johnson, Rudy J. Richardson, editors, Computational Systems Pharmacology and Toxicology (Issues in Toxicology; no. 31), London: Royal Society of Chemistry, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 213:

(computing, sciences) In computer simulation or in virtual reality.


AFK

I'm gonna go AFK in a few mins

(military, video games, Internet slang) Initialism of away from keyboard (that is, away from one's computer; idle)


on the same wavelength

I don't really understand him; we're just not on the same wavelength.

“I love that we’re best friends,” says Emily. “We complete each other’s sentences and we’re on the same wavelength.”

2022 January 17, Lizzie Cernik, “How we met: ‘None of my Indian friends had girlfriends. But I liked her too much to say no’”, in The Guardian:

Thinking in the same way; having similar thought processes (in general).

Luckily, the members of the committee were on the same wavelength, so we didn't have endless discussions about what words meant.

In complete agreement; having the same perspective (on a particular issue).


till the cows come home

until the cows come home
until the cows come home#English

Alternative form of until the cows come home.


out of the woods

The patient is feeling a little better, but she's not out of the woods yet.

The Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, is in a stable condition but “not out of the woods yet”, officials have said, as they appealed for calm after a shooting that laid bare the deep political divisions of recent months.

2024 May 16, Pjotr Sauer, Ashifa Kassam, “Slovakian PM Robert Fico stable but ‘not out of the woods’ after shooting”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(idiomatic) Out of peril; likely to recover or prevail over trouble; finished with the worst or most threatening part of a problem or illness.

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see out of, the, woods.


OTOH

on the other hand
on the other hand#English

(Internet slang, text messaging) Initialism of on the other hand.


off one's own bat

My boss didn't tell me to reorganize the filing system; I did it off my own bat.

(idiomatic) At one's own instigation, of one's own accord.


off duty

The policeman was off duty but had his gun.

I won't be going off duty until about six.

Officially I think you're crazy. Unofficially I'm off duty.

1944, Philip MacDonald, Action in Arabia, spoken by Matthew Reed (Robert Armstrong):

Not engaged in an assigned task, duty or occupation.


on average

measure of central tendency
measure of central tendency

Expressed as a measure of central tendency (usually the arithmetic mean).

(idiomatic) Usually, typically; as a rule; as often as not.


on second thought

I originally thought that it was a good idea, but on second thought I'm not so sure.

(US, idiomatic) After reconsidering; on further consideration.


on edge

Waiting to see who had been chosen, we were all on edge.

(idiomatic) Tense, nervous; consequently irritable.


on sufferance

I wasn't whole-hearted about the decision but couldn't think of a better one, so went along with it on sufferance for the time being.

In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.[…]Strangers might enter the room, but they were made to feel that they were there on sufferance: they were received with distance and suspicion.

1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:

(idiomatic) Unwillingly agreed to or barely tolerated.


on demand

The kitten is being fed on demand.

Our new on-demand software delivery system is cutting edge.

igény szerinti

in adjectival role, before a noun phrase


on the level

askew

antonym(s) of “honest, sincere, straightforward”

See the Citations page for examples showing the sense evolution.

He looks like a used car salesman, but he's really on the level, so you can trust him.

While I believe that the American people and the players want the game to be on the level, there are two or three things which, it strikes me, are not up to a high standard of honor.

1912 August, Christy Mathewson, “Play Clean Ball”, in Boys' Life, page 7:

"On the level, honey, I have an all-time, big-time need for coffee."

1959, Marc Brody, Low Dive for Lola, page i. 9:

(idiomatic) Honest(ly), sincere(ly), straightforward(ly), fair(ly).

Synonym of on the square (“discreet reference to freemasonry”)


on the whole

The language was wrong for the period, but, on the whole, I enjoyed the film.

Davis had a ball lodged in his body, and his right hand shot off; but on the whole, he seems to have been less damaged than his companion.

1849, Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Monday:

[H]is class was near enough her own for its manners to vex her. But she found him interesting on the whole.

1910, E. M. Forster, chapter 5, in Howards End:

Both Maidan and Tahrir were peaceful. Maidan was absolutely peaceful, Tahrir saw some unrest but was still peaceful on the whole.

2012 January 18, Simon Shuster, “The Anti-Putin Movement: An Interview with the Blogger in Chief”, in Time, retrieved 2013-08-18:

(idiomatic) For the most part; apart from some insignificant details.


on the cheap

Would I take someone here for a first date? No. Would I go here for a cheap bite? Also no, but would I go here to get drunk on the cheap? Absolutely.

2023 July 21, Billie Schwab Dunn, “I Tried Wetherspoons Food for the First Time-I Feared I'd Get Scurvy...”, in Daily Star:

(informal) Synonym of cheaply or economically.

Well, if you buy things on the cheap what do you expect?

(informal) Too cheaply or economically, inexpensive and affordable to the point of substandard quality.


on target

But the elephants so moved me yesterday that I wanted very much to go [to the circus] again. My sother recognized that when she spoke to me on the phone and after the show she said, "I know when I'm dealing with a three-year old." She was exactly on target, as always.

1983 December 24, Nancy Walker, “Pachyderms: A Delightful Regression”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 23, page 14:

The second quartile's figures were right on target.

Both shots landed on target.

Everton went close late on but managed just one attempt on target all match.

2011 December 10, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 1 - 0 Everton”, in BBC Sport:


on tiptoe

Standing elevated on the tips of one's toes.

We crept out on tiptoe so as not to awake the children.

Moving carefully, quietly, warily or stealthily on the tips of one's toes.


on the other hand

Well yes, it was quite a good bargain; on the other hand, do we really need one?

Its external relations, on the one hand to dynamics, and on the other to heat, light, chemical action, and the constitution of bodies, seem to indicate the special importance of electrical science as an aid to the interpretation of nature.

1873, James Clerk Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism:

Thus the study of the language he is supposed to use, to the average American, takes on a sort of bilingual character. On the one hand, he is grounded abominably in a grammar and syntax that have always been largely artificial, even in the country where they are supposed to prevail, and on the other hand he has to pick up the essentials of his actual speech as best he may.

1921 [1919], H. L. Mencken, chapter 1, in The American Language, 2nd edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, →OCLC:

1950, Bertrand Russell, acceptance speech for Nobel Prize in Literature
I maintain, however, on the one hand, that there are few occasions upon which large bodies of men, such as politics is concerned with, can rise above selfishness, while, on the other hand, there are a very great many circumstances in which populations will fall below selfishness, if selfishness is interpreted as enlightened self-interest.

The host of business travellers between Bishops Stortford and London would scarcely take kindly to devious routing via the Southbury line; on the other hand, it is not desirable that they should overcrowd the business trains to and from Cambridge.

1961 January, “The North-East London electrification of the Great Eastern Line”, in Trains Illustrated, page 19:

(sequence, idiomatic) From another point of view.


on high

From Middle English on heigh, on an heigh (“in or into heaven; up to heaven”) [and other forms], from Old English on hēagum (“on high”); hēagum is an inflected form of hēah (“high; tall”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kewk- (“height; to elevate”). The English word is equivalent to on + high. Compare Dutch omhoog (“upwards, on high”), West Frisian omheech (“upwards”).

inh

So thick a haze o’erspreads the sky, / They cannot see the Sun on high; / The wind hath blown a gale all day, / At evening it hath died away.

1796–1798 (date written; published 1802), Robert Southey, “The Inchcape Rock”, in The Poetical Works of Robert Southey. […], volume VI, London: […] [Andrew Spottiswoode] for Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, […], published 1838, →OCLC, page 137:

His [a horse's] back would be so glossy, / His sides so smooth and brown, / I'd have to hold his collar / To keep from slipping down! / And jogging on the roadway, / The people passing by / Would turn to smile at Bonny / With me set up on high.

c. 1920s–1930s, Elizabeth Fleming, “The Ploughman”, in School Journal, volume 32, Wellington, New Zealand: School Publications Branch, Department of Education, published 1938, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 112:

To a high position; or up in, or to, the sky; above.

omhoog

to a high position; or up in, or to, the sky — see also above, aloft

Who is like vnto the Lord our God: who dwelleth on high: […]

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 113:5, column 1:

The trumpet ſhall be heard on high, / The dead ſhall live, the living die, / And Muſic ſhall untune the ſky.

1687, John Dryden, “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, 1687”, in The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, […], volume II, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson, […], published 1760, →OCLC, page 271:

(specifically, chiefly Christianity, literary) Up in, or to, Heaven.

According to those on high, taxes need to increase again.

(humorous) In authority, influence, or power.


on-the-air

Alternative spelling of on the air, especially when used attributively.


out of fashion

The old very high signals, for instance, affording a sky background at a considerable distance, and at times provided with co-acting arms lower down, are out of fashion now, although many still remain.

1952 February, “New Type of Signal Bridge Near Sunderland”, in Railway Magazine, page 88:

The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when modish taste was just due to go clean out of fashion for the best part of the next hundred years.

1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:


out of breath

We were all out of breath when we got to the summit.

Breathing with difficulty, in particular due to physical activity.


out of proportion

I only said that she wasn't as young as she used to be, and her response was out of proportion.

Six days of the week it [work] soils / With its sickening poison — / Just for paying a few bills! / That's out of proportion.

1955, Philip Larkin, The Less Deceived, Toads:

(idiomatic) Not in a proper or pleasing relation to other things, especially in terms of size.


out of luck

You're out of luck: the train has just left.

(idiomatic) Experiencing a temporary misfortune.


out of the ordinary

The food was expensive, and nothing out of the ordinary.

The unusual rolling stock, the fare collection methods, and the exchange of train staffs make it quite clear that here is something out of the ordinary run of suburban electric lines.

1951 November, R. K. Kirkland, “The Wimbledon and West Croydon Line of the Southern Region”, in Railway Magazine, page 726:

My house / Is out of the ordinary / That's right / Don't wanna hurt nobody

1983, Talking Heads (lyrics and music), “Burning Down the House”, in Speaking in Tongues:

(idiomatic, chiefly in the negative) Unusual or exceptional, especially for the better (often used in the negative).


out of work

This lost time was caused mainly because the operator had to find the dispatcher and notify him that the machine was out of work.

1955, Franklin G. Moore, Manufacturing Management, page 812:

(dated) not working correctly; out of order


out of it

When my old friends turned up, my wife felt quite out of it.

Not participating in some trend or group.

Having the flu all week left me pretty well out of it.

So intoxicated (from alcohol or drugs) that one is unaware of what is going on, stupefied


out of stock

Sorry, there's been a run on turkeys and we're out of stock.

(business) Unable to sell an item because no more are in inventory.

The turkeys are out of stock but we have some guinea fowl in the back.

(business) Unavailable because the stock in inventory has all been sold.


out of the way

I know this out-of-the-way hotel where we could stay.

It was from no choice of my own that I was brought up in an out-of-the-way pallazzo, with nothing to do but to fall in love.

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 8:

Passenger numbers had been rising sharply. But the replacement of the services by buses, which take far longer because of the number of stations in out-of-the-way villages on the route, will ensure they plummet again.

2022 December 14, Christian Wolmar, “No Marston Vale line trains... and no one in charge seems to 'give a damn'”, in RAIL, number 972, page 46:

'I'm not an out of the way nervous woman.'

1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 14, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 176:

Please move your bike out of the way.

In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way.

2013 June 7, Ed Pilkington, “‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 6:

The railway ran through the resort's narrow streets up to Weymouth Quay station, with thoughtlessly parked vehicles sometimes having to be bumped out of the way.

2023 December 27, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: the way to Weymouth”, in RAIL, number 999, page 55:

(idiomatic) Not obstructing or hindering; not in the way.

Now that the main problems are out of the way, we can start working on the details.


out of joint

I fell over and put my shoulder out of joint.

Fla[via]. Come, Sir Pergamus, till your horse come, you and I'll go play at shuttle-cock. / Per[gamus]. A match i'faith. I love that sport a' life. Yet my mother charged me not to use it for fear of putting my arm out of joint.

c. 1604–1626, doubtfully attributed to Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Faithful Friends”, in Henry [William] Weber, editor, The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, in Fourteen Volumes: […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] F[rancis] C[harles] and J[ohn] Rivington; […], published 1812, →OCLC, Act II, scene ii, page 50:

The time is out of ioynt, O curſed ſpite, / That euer I was borne to ſet it right, […]

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shake-speare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and Iohn Trundell, published 1603, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]:

If the time is out of joint, have I any calling or strength to set it right?

1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 62, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

Her stepmother had whimsical moods; and if Cynthia displeased her, she would oppress Molly with small kindnesses and pseudo-affection. Or else everything was wrong, the world was out of joint, and Molly had failed in her mission to set it right, and was to be blamed accordingly.

1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, “A Passive Coquette”, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1866, →OCLC, page 14:

(by extension) Chaotic, disordered, out of control.

While the Kremlin at Moscow exhales a paradoxical sympathy with this renewal of old tradition, Leningrad seems out of joint with Bolshevism and wears a sad air, as though mourning for an interlude which is past.

1933, Robert Byron, First Russia, Then Tibet, London: Macmillan, Part I, Chapter 5, p. 71:

Not in harmony, in step or in line (with something).

nicht miteinander im / in Einklang stehen / sein


out of one's mind

You're out of your mind if you think you can jump that far.

Or was Erskine out of his mind? And he himself Watt was he not perhaps slightly deranged? And Mr. Knott himself, was he quite right in his head?

1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC:

When you didn't phone home, we were out of our minds with worry.

(idiomatic) Temporarily mentally unstable; very distressed.

Try to put the day's troubles out of your mind and relax.


out of date

My bus pass is out of date — I'll have to go buy a new one.

I can't eat this salad, it's out of date.

Owing to the time lag which must occur between the dates of closing for press and publication, it sometimes happens that items of news are out of date, or inaccurate, by the time they reach readers.

1947 January and February, “Notes and News: Steamer Services on the Clyde”, in Railway Magazine, page 50:

(idiomatic) Too old to be used; not current; invalid; outmoded.

The dresses she wears are quite out of date.

(idiomatic) Not conforming to the current fashion or style; old-fashioned.


out of pocket

pay out of pocket for medication

Over a decade ago I came out as a transgender woman and began to navigate my transition. That’s when I was confronted by the harsh fact that transition-related healthcare was often not covered by insurance and instead largely paid for out of pocket.

2015 September 16, Andy Marra, “Many trans people still are denied healthcare because of their identity”, in The Guardian:

out of one's own pocket
out of one's own pocket#English


on foot

From Middle English on fote, from Old English on fōte (“on foot”), equivalent to on + foot.

The pub's not far: let's go on foot.

At the same time, the encroachment of vegetation proceeds apace, and broom and brambles have already made portions of the line impassable, even on foot.

1949 November and December, “Notes and News: Festiniog and Welsh Highland Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 408:

On one's feet; walking, jogging or running but not in a vehicle or on the back of an animal.

(now rare, chiefly hunting) On the move; astir.

[W]ithin a short time it was generally believed at Naples, that a treaty of marriage was on foot between Zeluco and the young lady in question […].

1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt, published 2008, page 113:

In progress or in preparation; active, in operation.


out of place

From out of (preposition) + place (noun).

No wonder I couldn’t find it—it was out of place.

She came in out of the storm with not a hair out of place.

Amongst all those horsey people I felt quite out of place.

A garden smoothly laid with turf, divided by thick hedges, with raised beds of bright flowers, such as we keep within walls in England, would have been out of place upon the side of this bare hill.

1915, Virginia Woolf, chapter VII, in The Voyage Out, London: Duckworth & Co., […], →OCLC, page 105:

Not in the proper arrangement or situation.

yersiz

not in the proper arrangement or situation

orpo (literally “orphan”) (not belonging; in the translative case with tuntea)

That remark was out of place.

[H]e ſo ſtudied with wordes & ſaynges brought furth ſo out of time & place to make ſporte and moue laughter, yͭ he himſelf was oftener laughed at thẽ his ieſtes were.

[1551, Thomas More, “The Fyrste Boke of the Communycacion of Raphaell Hythlodaye Concernynge the Best State of a Commen Wealthe”, in Raphe Robynson [i.e., Ralph Robinson], transl., A Fruteful, and Pleasaunt Worke of the Best State of a Publyque Weale, and of the Newe Yle Called Utopia: […], London: […] [Steven Mierdman for] Abraham Vele, […], →OCLC, signatures E.i., verso – E.ii., recto:

Bare lyes vvith bold affections they can face, / But dint of argument is out of place.

1687, [John Dryden], “The Third Part”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC, page 84:

All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. […] Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion—or rather as a transition from the subject that started their conversation—such talk had been distressingly out of place.

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, pages 198–199:

[Marcus] Rashford showed the fearless streak [Gareth] Southgate so admires with his constant willingness to run at Brazil's defence with pace, even demonstrating on occasion footwork that would not have been out of place from members of England's illustrious opposition.

2017 November 14, Phil McNulty, “International Friendlies: England 0 – 0 Brazil”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 2023-02-27:


out of tune

The violins go out of tune in damp weather.

By the end of the song, I was completely out of tune with the guitar.

It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.

c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v]:

The party’s social policy is out of tune with the values of most citizens.

[…] a house which is aping the town fashions of Germany and France, a prim, hideous, straight-up-and-down thing, plastered all over on the outside to look like stone, and altogether so stiff, and formal, and ugly and forbidding, and so out of tune with the gracious landscape, and so deaf and dumb and dead to the poetry of its surroundings, that it suggests an undertaker at a picnic, a corpse at a wedding, a puritan in Paradise.

1880, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXXI, in A Tramp Abroad; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company; London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 324:

(figurative) Not in agreement or in harmony (with something).


behind the arc

The Nimrods shot an amazingly futile 2-for-45 from behind the arc.

(basketball, informal) Outside the three-point line.


on time

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-on time.wav

The train arrived on time for the first time this week.

Punctually or according to the schedule.

They bought their dining-room furniture on time.

By installments, payments over a period of time.

Smith beat Jones on time.

(chess) By a player's running out of time.


out of order

You've got my index cards out of order again.

The lift is always out of order.

I suppose my remarks about his wife were out of order.

(idiomatic) Inappropriate or unsuitable.

Not in order: not according with the procedural rules governing formal meetings of a deliberative body.


off the cuff

Purported to be from the habit by after-dinner speakers of jotting a few notes on the cuff of the sleeve.

Nor was there anything off the cuff about their insistence that Manuel Pellegrini was happy to make the name of his replacement public knowledge, echoing his sentiment that they were “not doing anything behind me” from a press conference earlier in the same day.

2016 February 2, Lee Roden, “Premier League: From Pellegrini to Pep - Why the Engineer made City the ideal destination for Guardiola”, in Yahoo Sport:


on the blink

Presumably from an appliance with poor electrical connection blinking from intermittent connection.

My toaster is on the blink, making either charcoal or cold bread.

I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink / I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink

1968, “I'm So Tired”, in John Lennon (lyrics), The Beatles, performed by the Beatles:

(UK, Australia, informal) functioning erratically, malfunctioning; not working or not working well. Usually refers to a mechanical or electrical device.

kaputt sein

to be malfunctioning (device), the state of being out of order


beside oneself

Possibly derived from Ancient Greek παράνοια (paránoia, “madness”), from παράνοος (paránoos, “demented”), from παρά (pará, “beyond, beside”) + νόος (nóos, “mind, spirit”), with "beside mind" evolving into "beside oneself".

uder

His widow was beside herself with grief.

[...] he contemplated it most calmly. Comparatively, all other men, North and South, were beside themselves.

1860, Henry David Thoreau, The Last Days of John Brown:

(idiomatic) Overcome; consumed by an emotion.


by hook or by crook

/baɪ ˈhʊk‿əɹ baɪ ˈkɹʊk/

Origin unknown. One suggestion is that the term is derived from the common of estovers, an ancient right in English law for tenants of land to gather dead wood on common land using blunt tools such as hooks and shepherd’s crooks.

She was determined to win the contract by hook or by crook.

Nor wyll suffre this boke / By hoke ne by croke / Prynted for to be, […]

1521–1522, John Skelton, “Here after Followeth a Litel Boke Called Colyn Cloute, […]”, in Alexander Dyce, editor, The Poetical Works of John Skelton: […], volume I, London: Thomas Rodd, […], published 1843, →OCLC, page 359, lines 1239–1241:

Some out of that inſatiable deſire of filthy lucre, to enrich themſelues, care not hovv they come by it, per fas & nefas [by right and wrong], hooke or crooke, ſo they haue it.

1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Loue of Learning, or Overmuch Study. With a Digression of the Misery of Schollers, and Why the Muses are Melancholy.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 1, section 2, member 3, subsection 15, page 179:

Novv if you could put us in a vvay, by hook or by crook, to get her out of the convent—

1776 (first performance), Samuel Foote, “A Trip to Calais”, in [George] Colman, editor, A Trip to Calais; a Comedy […] To which is Annexed, The Capuchin; […] Altered from the Trip to Calais, […], London: […] T. Sherlock, for T[homas] Cadell, […], published 1778, →OCLC, Act II, scene [i], page 35:

P.S. I hope you will be enabled by hook or by crook, to send B—— and H——, together with a certain Mr. Guthrie, to Philadelphia, for their winter quarters.

1794 October 26 (date written), George Washington, “Washington to [Alexander] Hamilton”, in John C[hurch] Hamilton, editor, The Works of Alexander Hamilton; Comprising His Correspondence, and His Political and Official Writings, […], volume V, New York, N.Y.: John F[owler] Trow, […], published 1851, →OCLC, page 45:

Thus, by diverse little make shifts, in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated "by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all those who undersood nothing of the labour of headwork, to have a wonderful easy life of it.

1820 March 5, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., number VI, New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van Winkle, […], →OCLC, pages 62–63:

Since we've looked up a little in the world, I saved up five guineas, by hook or by crook, and tried to get Poll back again, but the lady said she wouldn't take fifty guineas for him.

1833, [Frederick Marryat], chapter XXVII, in Peter Simple. […], volume III, London: Saunders and Otley, […], published 1834, →OCLC, page 373:

Can you not drive over and see me? Do come by hook or by crook.

1842 March (date written), George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “[March 1841 to April 1846: Coventry—Translation of [David] Strauss]”, in J[ohn] W[alter] Cross, editor, George Eliot’s Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, published 1885, →OCLC, page 112:

In these fields of Mr. Tulkinghorn's inhabiting, where the shepherds play on Chancery pipes that have no stop, and keep their sheep in the fold by hook and by crook until they have shorn them exceeding close, every noise is merged, this moonlight night, into a distant ringing hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating.

1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, “Closing In”, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC, page 469:

And, by hook or by crook, Hedger Luxellian was made a lord, and everything went on well till some time after, when he got into a most terrible row with King Charles the Fourth— […]

1872 September – 1873 July, Thomas Hardy, “‘’Twas on the Evening of a Winter’s Day’”, in A Pair of Blue Eyes. […], volume I, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], published 1873, →OCLC, pages 15–16:

I wouldn't have believed it of myself; but, then—you see—I felt somehow I must get there by hook or by crook.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 198, column 1:

He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed in, by drinking so much that he blunted the edge of his perceptions, by laziness, by sloth, and by snobbery, by pride and by prejudice, by hook and by crook.

1936 August, Ernest Hemingway, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 14 October 1938, →OCLC, page 158:

(idiomatic) By any means possible; one way or another.

不择手段 (bùzéshǒuduàn, literally “not choose between methods”)

千方百计 (qiānfāngbǎijì, literally “a thousand methods and a hundred calculations”)

ไม่ได้ด้วยเล่ห์ก็เอาด้วยกล ไม่ได้ด้วยมนต์ก็เอาด้วยคาถา (mâi-dâai-dûai-lêe-gɔ̂-ao-dûai-gon mâi-dâai-dûai-mon-gɔ̂-ao-dûai-kaa-tǎa, literally “If you can’t get it through tricks, use wiles; if you still can’t get it by spells, then use charms”)


under someone's nose

I searched for my glasses for twenty minutes, and finally found them right under my nose.

(idiomatic) directly in front of one; clearly visible

If we had paid more attention, we would have found that answer was under our noses the whole time.


on the rag

From rag as a slang term for a menstrual pad. First use appears c. 1967. See cite below.

Harold: How is Sarah? I don't want to jump her while she's on the rag.

(idiomatic, vulgar, slang, sometimes euphemistic) Menstruating.

On the rag, in a bad mood.—College males, Arizona. I had a lousy time last night because she was on the rag.

1967, University of South Dakota, English Dept, Current Slang, Volumes 2-5, page 5:

(idiomatic, derogatory, by extension) In a bad mood; angry or irritable.


out of the blue

Short for out of the blue sky, likening an unexpected event to lightning or rain coming suddenly from a cloudless sky.

After I hadn’t heard from her in six months, she called me out of the blue to meet for lunch.

I really can't understand how something like this could simply pop up out of the blue.

(idiomatic) Unexpectedly; without warning or preparation.

som en blixt från klar himmel

like a lightning bolt out of a clear sky


on the tip of one's tongue

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-on the tip of one's tongue.wav

Her name is on the tip of my tongue: it's Kathy, or Karen, or something.

The feeling that a blocked word or name is on the tip of the tongue appears to be a near-universal experience. The cognitive psychologist Bennett Schwarz surveyed speakers of fifty-one different languages and found that forty-five of them contain expressions using "the tongue" to describe situations […]

2001, Daniel L. Schacter, The Seven Sins of Memory, How the Mind Forgets and Remembers, Houghton Mifflin, →ISBN:

Known but not quite able to be recalled.

на языке́ ве́ртится (na jazyké vértitsja, literally “turns on [my] tongue”)


out of wedlock

Some children are born out of wedlock.

(idiomatic) Of parents not legally married.


under way

The All Blacks drove upfield, using up the remaining moments, and when Joubert blew for another French infringement, the biggest party in New Zealand's history was under way.

2011 October 23, Tom Fordyce, “2011 Rugby World Cup final: New Zealand 8-7 France”, in BBC Sport:

Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.

2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18:

SWR has decided to withdraw it with immediate effect and cease the programme of modifications that were under way, to avoid incurring further costs to the taxpayer to reintroduce and operate these trains.

2021 May 21, Richard Clinnick, “Fleet News: SWR's termination of '442' refurbishment saves £24m”, in RAIL, number 931, page 29:

(idiomatic) In operation, in progress, commenced.

(nautical, of a vessel) Moving through the water; not anchored, moored, aground, or beached.

The show finally got under way, just 10 minutes late.


off the bat

From cricket, baseball, and other sports where a bat is used to strike a ball and the players have to make an immediate decision where to run and what plays to make after a successful strike.

hot off the bat   straight off the bat

I didn't see anything wrong, off the bat.

"We're not going to uplift the frequency until we've got the new trains. But what we've seen straight off the bat has been a big winner for our customers."

2023 November 29, Richard Foster, “Tyne & Wear Metro goes with the flow”, in RAIL, number 997, page 35:

(US, idiomatic) From the start; immediately; right away.


on the ball

If I had been more on the ball I would have asked when he called me.

(idiomatic) Alert, active, or attentive; on top of things.

...Rovers were also aided by some poor defending from West Brom, whose lapses at the back undid their excellent work on the ball and condemned Roberto di Matteo's Baggies side to a third straight defeat.

2010 December 28, Kevin Darlin, “West Brom 1 - 3 Blackburn”, in BBC:

Australian rules football
Australian rules football

(Australian rules football) Playing as a midfielder.


off the wagon

Originally off the water wagon or off the water cart, referring to carts used to hose down dusty roads: see the 1901 quotation below. The suggestion is that a person who is “on the wagon” is drinking water rather than alcoholic beverages. The term may have been used by the early 20th-century temperance movement in the United States; for instance, William Hamilton Anderson (1874 – c. 1959), the superintendent of the New York Anti-Saloon League, is said to have made the following remark about Prohibition: “Be a good sport about it. No more falling off the water wagon. Uncle Sam will help you keep your pledge.”

She kept up her diet for an entire month before falling off the wagon.

He is off the wagon again.

(idiomatic) No longer maintaining a program of self-improvement or abstinence from an undesirable habit, especially drinking alcohol.


with the spin

(cricket) hitting the ball in the same direction that it is spinning off the pitch


on the mend

My foot is on the mend but it still hurts to walk.

My stress and frustration resulted in a spastic colon and the need for weeks of medication. While on the mend, another avenue [for funding] was suggested to me - individual Jewish philanthropists.

2017, Velvel Pasternak, Behind the Music, Stories, Anecdotes, Articles and Reflections, page 44:

His neighbours somehow rescued him after he was shot in the face and back, and he is on the mend after life-saving surgery.

2023 October 13, Jacob Steinberg, “‘They came to slaughter us’: Spurs fan shot by Hamas damns English football’s response”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(of persons and their health) Healing or recovering, as from an injury or illness.

Our marriage went through a difficult time, but now it is on the mend.

(figurative, of situations or things) Improving or undergoing restoration to a previous, more favorable condition.


on the fence

I am still on the fence about which way to vote.

The letter was from a 41-year-old man who was also on the fence about kids: “Things like quiet, free time, spontaneous travel, pockets of non-obligation,” he wrote. “I really value them.”

2017 May 22, Olga Khazan, “How People Decide Whether to Have Children”, in The Atlantic:

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see on, the, fence.


on the wagon

Originally on the water wagon or on the water cart, referring to carts used to hose down dusty roads: see the 1901 quotation below. The suggestion is that a person who is “on the wagon” is drinking water rather than alcoholic beverages. The term may have been used by the early 20th-century temperance movement in the United States; for instance, William Hamilton Anderson (1874 – c. 1959), the superintendent of the New York Anti-Saloon League, is said to have made the following remark about Prohibition: “Be a good sport about it. No more falling off the water wagon. Uncle Sam will help you keep your pledge.”

I wanted to git him some whisky, but he shuck his head. 'I'm on the water-cart,' sez he.

[1901, Alice Caldwell Hegan, “How Spring Came to the Cabbage Patch”, in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (Project Gutenberg; EBook #4377), New York, N.Y.: Published by the Century Co., De Vinne Press, published 26 July 2009 (Project Gutenberg version), →OCLC, archived from the original on 2015-10-24, page 124:

"Where did you get all that money?" / "Went to hear Bill and climbed on the water wagon."

1915, Billy Sunday, Get on the Water Wagon, Journal Publishing Company:

"Sit down, bo," invited Soup Face. "I guess you're a regular all right. Here, have a snifter?" and he pulled a flask from his side pocket, holding it toward The Oskaloosa Kid. / "Thank you, but;—er—I'm on the wagon, you know," declined the youth.

1917 (first published 1918 March), Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Oakdale Affair”, in Blue Book Magazine (Project Gutenberg; EBook #363), Chicago, Ill.: Story-Press Corp., published 25 January 2013 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 270523625, archived from the original on 30 March 2016; republished in The Oakdale Affair; The Rider, Tarzana, Calif.: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., 1937, OCLC 8951886

[T]hree years later he began formally to go on the wagon: "I quit drinking three months ago, hopefully for life."

1995, George E[man] Vaillant, “The Natural History of Alcoholism”, in The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 177:

In fact regularly going on the wagon is a sure indication of a serious drink problem. If they genuinely enjoy a drink, why would they even want to go a month without one? Obviously because their drinking was causing them a problem.

2009, Allen Carr, “Those Lucky Normal Drinkers”, in Easy Way to Control Alcohol, London: Arcturus Publishing, →ISBN, page 200:

The Big Brother house guests drank liquor by the crateful. But Love Island’s tortuous trysts are fuelled by fruit juice and nosecco. Why did reality TV go on the wagon?

2022 July 18, Amelia Tait, “‘Alcohol is a hand grenade’: how reality TV went from boozy Big Brother to nosecco Love Island”, in The Guardian:

(idiomatic) Abstaining from drinking any alcoholic drink, usually in the sense of having given it up (as opposed to never having partaken); teetotal.

He’s been on the smoking cessation wagon for two weeks now.

This book is about harm reduction. It is not about "getting clean." […] It is not about an all-or-nothing attitude: drink or be on the wagon, use or quit. It is about reducing the harm done by alcohol and other drugs in your life. Less harm is the solution.

2003, Patt Denning, Jeannie Little, Adina Glickman, “Addiction: Is It All or Nothing?”, in Over the Influence: The Harm Reduction Guide for Managing Drugs and Alcohol, New York, N.Y.: Guilford Press, →ISBN, page 15:

Just because you've had a smoke doesn't mean that you need to become depressed and give up on quitting. This is a learning process and you need to take every day as it comes. Simply get back on the wagon and continue on with your nonsmoking goals. You can do this!

2015, Richard Foreman, “Managing Your Cravings”, in How to Quit Smoking in Simple Steps!: The Best Easy Ways to Stop Smoking, [s.l.]: Richard Foreman:

(by extension) Maintaining a program of self-improvement or abstinence from some other undesirable habit.

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see on, the, wagon.


without fail

You will report to the police every week without fail.

And David enquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Samuel 30:8:

"Tuesday by all means." "Tuesday, then, without fail."

1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 149:

(idiomatic) Certainly; by all means; as a matter of importance.

как штык (kak štyk, literally “like a bayonet”)


behind bars

There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.

1905, Upton Sinclair, chapter XXVII, in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC:

Some 460,000 Americans are behind bars for drug offenses.

2001 May 7, Margot Roosevelt et al., “The War Against The War On Drugs”, in Time:

Leading Jordanian exponents of the Salafi-jihadi world view, such as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, are now behind bars or silent, fearing arrest by the powerful mukhabarat secret police.

2014 November 27, Ian Black, “Courts kept busy as Jordan works to crush support for Isis”, in The Guardian:

(figuratively, idiomatic) In jail, in prison.


on one's feet

He's very quick on his feet.

She's so light on her feet that we couldn't hear her coming.

While standing up or walking, running, etc.

Welcome back! It's good to see you back on your feet.

(idiomatic) Able to stand; hence, healthy, well, especially after some previous illness.

The organization provides training and assistance to help the unemployed get back on their feet.

It took some time for the lady to get back on her feet after the death of her husband.

(idiomatic) In a satisfactory (non-physical) condition; happy financially, emotionally, etc.

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see on, feet.


at best

Steve Bruce's side have swung from highs to lows in what has been at best a wildly inconsistent start to the season. They experienced a microcosm of this within the opening 45 minutes at the Stadium of Light.

2011 October 1, Phil Dawkes, “Sunderland 2 - 2 West Brom”, in BBC Sport:

The power of federal officials to issue a national vaccine mandate is questionable at best.

2021 August 6, “Get Vaccinated. Get Masked. It’s the Only Way Out of This.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

It recalls the business case for Scotland's reopening of the Borders Railway to Tweedbank, that British Rail closed in 1969. The review says the business case for this was at best borderline, but goes on to say that the case greatly underestimated passenger demand and that the railway Scotland built has capped its capacity.

2023 September 6, Philip Haigh, “£30 billion plan to transform the rail network in Ireland”, in RAIL, number 991, page 25:

In the most favorable of conditions, especially in a situation that is otherwise negative.


in the dark

Management kept the board of directors completely in the dark.

They remained in the dark until the newspaper story came out.

You must remember, Mr Atherton, that I am wholly in the dark as to what has happened.

Until two or three days before Carter's December 15 announcement, the State Department spokesman was still saying that no decisions had been reached on the timing and the modality for normalization of relations with Peking. Meanwhile, the administration had been keeping Congress, including its leadership, completely in the dark. Then, taking advantage of the Christmas holidays, during which no one was watching on Capitol Hill, Carter sprang his surprise.

1983, James C. H. Shen, “Beginnings of Endings”, in Robert Myers, editor, The U.S. & Free China: How the U.S. Sold Out Its Ally, Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books Ltd., →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 18:

en mantillas (colloquial; usu. preceded by dejar)

(poker slang) Without looking at one's hole cards, thus not knowing what they are.

I tripped over his suitcase in the dark.

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: Without light; somewhere that is dark.


to someone's liking

They are always keen to ensure that the food is to your liking in this restaurant.


under protest

I'm washing up under protest because it's not my turn.

(US, law) of a payment made subject to dispute


under fire

courage under fire

coolness under fire

Enlisted personnel are thoroughly trained and stay calm under fire. Turian units don't break. Even if their entire line collapses, they fall back in order, setting ambushes as they go.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Turians: Military Doctrine Codex entry:

Subjected to enemy attack with firearms.

grace under fire

The clerk had, I'm afraid, a shrew of a wife—shrill, vehement, and fluent. […] He had learned, by long experience, the best tactique under fire: he became actually taciturn; or, if he spoke, his speech was laconic and enigmatical; sometimes throwing out a proverb, and sometimes a text; and sometimes when provoked past endurance, spouting mildly a little bit of meek and venomous irony.

1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:

Meanwhile, the government's own Human Services department is under fire from the Ombudsman for its failure to protect children in its care.

2009, Michael O'Connor, Quadrant, November 2009, No. 461 (Volume LIII, Number 11), Quadrant Magazine Limited, page 2

Over the past two years, particularly in 2018, Network Rail has come under fire about its approaches to trackside tree-felling across its 52,000-hectare estate. Conservationists accused it of wanton destruction.

2020 June 3, Andrew Mourant, “A safer railway in a greener habitat”, in Rail, page 58:

(figurative) Criticized or held responsible for something.


by the skin of one's teeth

* From Job 19.20. "My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth."

I passed the test by the skin of my teeth.

I would have liked to have hung around in Birmingham, but my connections are tight owing to a points failure, and I make the CrossCountry Class 170 to Derby by the skin of my teeth.

2022 November 16, Paul Bigland, “From rural branches to high-speed arteries”, in RAIL, number 970, page 57:

(idiomatic) barely; closely; by a narrow margin; with nothing to spare.


at a moment's notice

The soldiers were ready at a moment's notice.

(idiomatic) Immediately; instantaneously; without need of warning.


ahead of the curve

(idiomatic) Changing before competitors.

(idiomatic) Above average; generally performing well.


FWIW

Alternative form: fwiw

Supposidly,^([sic]) SVR3 was developed on the 400 line, and ports to the 3B5/15 line are not due out until early next year. FWIW.

1986 August 27, Marc A. Ries, “Re: UNIX v.3 Query”, in net.unix (Usenet), retrieved 2016-07-02, message-ID <1267@trwrb.UUCP>:

Anyway, the PD libraries for "strings" and "ndir" were the saving grace, once "job control" was conditionally compiled out. FWIW.

1986 November 26, Marc A. Ries, “Re: Berkely Unix ported to NCR Tower32”, in comp.unix.wizards (Usenet), retrieved 2020-07-21, message-ID <1441@trwrb.UUCP>:

I spoke with a person that was a crew member of a P3-ORION out of Moffett. Although the Navy will not admit or deny the presence of nuclear depth-charges...he said that they routinely carry them during training...in case the training turns into the REAL thing while they are in the air. FWIW, --Bi// (For What It Is Worth)

1987 January 6, William Daul, “B-52's don't fly out of Moffett Naval Air Station”, in mod.politics.arms-d (Usenet), retrieved 2016-07-02, message-ID <8701070354.AA12777@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>:

for what it's worth
for what it's worth#English

(Internet slang, text messaging) Initialism of for what it's worth.


on the rocks

I'll have a whisky on the rocks.

Poured over ice, usually in reference to alcoholic drinks.

Joe and Tammy's relationship is on the rocks again.

Everything of interest happens in the first ten minutes. A male model called Carl (Harris Dickinson) senses after a calamitous audition that his career is already on the rocks, all washed up.

2022 May 21, Peter Bradshaw, “Triangle of Sadness review – heavy-handed satire on the super-rich loses its shape”, in The Guardian:

In a bad state, particularly of a romantic relationship.


up the wazoo

I'd go, but I'm sure they will charge up the wazoo for tickets.

Of course, it was strictly against company rules to allow dogs in the building but Graydon tolerated them because Elizabeth was, as Chris put it, “connected up the wazoo.”

2008 [2001], Toby Young, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo, →ISBN, page 76:

(colloquial, mildly vulgar) Synonym of out the wazoo.


at a canter

“When an artist becomes pop, it’s because the people choose it,” she says, now speaking at a canter.

2019 June 28, Michael Cragg, “Meet Rosalía”, in The Guardian:

It was down to Foden that any anxious moments on Wednesday evening - and there were some - were forgotten as City ended winners at a canter while showing the fluency, rhythm and threat they did not offer against Arsenal.

2024 April 3, Phil McNulty, “Man City 4-1 Aston Villa: Phil Foden produces 'masterclass' to show worth again”, in BBC:

(idiomatic) Without much effort; effortlessly; easily.


out the wazoo

I planted a few seeds and had radishes out the wazoo within a month.

The photo-sharing site was riddled with fake accounts that liked, followed and hashtagged out the wazoo. Then came the great “Instagram Rapture,” Instagram’s pledge last December to clean out the fake accounts and do “everything possible to keep Instagram free from the fake and spammy accounts that plague much of the web.”

2015 July 2, Julia Carpenter, “Can we ever beat the bots? Not on Instagram.”, in The Washington Post:


above and beyond

Shortened from the phrase above and beyond the call of duty, referring to heroic behavior during a military operation (“conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty”), traditionally used in citations of awards of a U.S. Medal of Honor.

The hospital staff often go above and beyond what is required of them.

Putting in overtime with no pay is above and beyond the call of duty.

And what incredible access we were given (and thus passed on via the magic of television to a potentially huge audience), because of the work put in by the production team and TfL staff going above and beyond the call of duty.

2021 June 30, Tim Dunn, “How we made... Secrets of the London Underground”, in RAIL, number 934, page 49:

Further than; doing more than is expected or required.


up someone's alley

This article would be right up his alley. Why don't you show it to him?

(informal) Matching or corresponding to a person's interests or abilities well.

jonkun alaa

matching a person's interests or abilities well


out of line

I lost my place when I had to get out of line to find you.

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see out of, line.

I hope my comments yesterday were not out of line.

(idiomatic) Inappropriate or unsuitable, especially by reason of being unmannerly or indelicate.

Pope Innocent III […] led a crusade against the out-of-line Albigensians in Provence.

1984 December 29, Charlie Shively, “Medieval Latin Poems of Male Love and Friendship (review)”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 25, page 10:

Disobedient, not following orders or order.


up to here

Just fill the bucket with water up to here.

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see up to, here.

I have been up to here in paperwork all week.

They have their lives to live and I'm up to here in disgust with mine.

1953, Raymond Chandler, chapter 12, in The Long Goodbye:

(idiomatic) Overwhelmed, busy, buried or swamped.

по́ у́ши (pó úši, literally “up to one's ears”)

I have had it up to here with his sarcasm.

I am stuffed up to here with appetizers.