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“food”

Showing 49–57 of 57 matches

  1. Eat out of your hand

    Origin From 19th-century Britain, tied to animals; taming with food, slang by 1830s for sway. A 1840 'Punch' uses it for a charmed lass.

    Also known as Out of hand

  2. Cost an arm and a leg

    Origin … print record found by The Phrase Finder is a December 1949 food column in the Long Beach Independent advising homemakers how to say 'Merry Christmas' without it costing 'an arm and a leg'; the OED's first…

    Also known as an arm and a leg · costs an arm and a leg · give an arm and a leg · pay an arm and a leg

  3. An elegant sufficiency

    Origin … poem Spring in 1728, although there it was not about food. Research discussed by the British Library traces the polite table formula to about 1840, when elaborate responses to offers of more food became…

    Also known as An elegant sufficiency, and any more would be superfluity · Elegant sufficiency · I've had an elegant sufficiency

  4. Not worth a hill of beans

    Origin From 19th-century America, tied to beans; lowly food, cheap as dirt; slang by 1860s for junk. A 1863 'New York Times' uses it for a failed crop.

    Also known as Hill of beans · Not worth beans

  5. Fine words butter no parsnips

    Origin … Buttering vegetables was an ordinary act, making the point concrete: speech cannot perform the useful work. Related versions substitute fair or soft for fine and sometimes replace parsnips with other food…

    Also known as Fair words butter no parsnips · Fine words butter no fish · Soft words butter no parsnips

  6. The scales fell from his eyes

    Origin … the Damascus road, Saul waits three days without sight or food until Ananias, sent in a vision despite his fears of the persecutor, lays hands on him; Acts 9:18 records the cure - immediately, something like…

    Also known as scales fall from your eyes · the scales fell from her eyes · the scales fell from my eyes

  7. Man does not live by bread alone

    Origin … verb form, while secular use broadened bread from literal food to material provision generally. The shortened modern saying often omits the verse's second half but retains its contrast between bodily…

    Also known as Man cannot live by bread alone

  8. Teach your grandmother to suck eggs

    Origin … such as the Latin 'sus Minervam' - a sow instructing Minerva, goddess of wisdom. The literal background is simply that raw eggs were a familiar, healthful food that older people had eaten all their lives…

    Also known as teach one's grandmother to suck eggs · teach your grandma to suck eggs · teach your granny to suck eggs

  9. There's no such thing as a free lunch

    Origin … saloon institution of the mid and late nineteenth century: food laid on for anyone buying drinks, advertised as early as a Milwaukee 'free lunch every day at 11 o'clock' in 1850, and deliberately salty so it…

    Also known as TANSTAAFL · There ain't no such thing as a free lunch · There is no free lunch · TINSTAAFL