Library

• Animal idioms

  Idioms and sayings drawn from the animal world — cats, dogs, horses, birds, and beasts — many of which Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) records as folk metaphors with ancient roots.

• Body idioms

  Sayings that turn on parts of the body — bones, hands, feet, teeth — often traced by Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) to old crafts, battlefield habits, or biblical passages.

• Classic proverbs

  Proverbs in wide English use — many of them, as Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) records, are centuries old and drawn from the Bible, the classics, and folk tradition.

• Color idioms

  Idioms that turn on colour — red, blue, green, black, white — often carrying old symbolic weight recorded in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898).

• Food idioms

  Idioms about cake, bread, salt, and the kitchen — many of them, as Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) notes, are proverbial in English and often much older than they sound.

• Luck & fortune sayings

  Sayings about luck, fate, and adversity — from classical maxims to Shakespearean tags, several of which Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) traces to their earlier sources.

• Money & work sayings

  Sayings about money, thrift, effort, and the workplace — Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) records many of these as old English proverbs.

• Weather idioms

  Idioms drawn from clouds, storms, rain, and sunshine — Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) records several of these as long-standing English metaphors of mood and fortune.