Tag archives: playing to the gallery

Yobs over the moon about burying the hatchet: popular idioms explained

Why do we bury the hatchet? This phrase, meaning to end an argument or conflict, refers back to a Native American custom in the seventeenth century whereby a hatchet or tomahawk (the axe of the North American Indians, used as a weapon of chase and war) would be buried in the ground to signal […]

Posted on: January 3 2013 | Posted by: Susie Dent | Comments: 6 | Categories: English in use, Word origins | Tags: bury the hatchet, expressions, idioms, it ain't over till the fat lady sings, over the moon, phrases, playing to the gallery, steal someone's thunder, What Made the Crocodile Cry?, yob