About

Idiom Insider publishes the real origins of English idioms and phrases — dated, sourced, and honest about what isn’t known.

What this is

Most idiom “origins” online are folk etymology: tidy stories invented long after the phrase, repeated because tidy stories travel. Idiom Insider does the opposite. Every entry gives the earliest recorded use we can verify, quoted from the source, with a plain verdict on whether the popular tale holds up — and an honest “origin unknown” when the record runs out.

How we work

We build entries from the sources etymologists actually use — the OED, historical corpora, newspaper archives and specialist scholarship — and we show our working. Our full approach is set out on the method page.

Why trust a dated answer

A claim with a date and a citation can be checked; a confident assertion cannot. That is the whole editorial position: be right, and show the working.