Stiff Phrases

Phrases

• A head for business and a body for sin
• A healthy mind in a healthy body
• A room without books is like a body without a soul (Marcus Tullius Cicero quotation)
• Accept a wooden nickel
• All set
• As dead as a dodo
• As dead as a doornail
• As dead as mutton
• As stiff as a poker
• At death's door
• At the dead of night
• Back from the dead
• Badgered to death
• Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me (from a poem by Dickinson)
• Better dead than red
• Better off dead
• Blue screen of death
• Body and soul
• Body bag
• Body blow
• Body building
• Body heat
• Body language
• Body mass index
• Body of evidence
• Body of opinion
• Body off Baywatch, face off Crimewatch
• Body painting (a form of painting that uses the human body as a canvas)
• Body politic
• Body popping
• Body snatcher
• Body surfing
• Bored stiff
• Bored to death
• Brain dead
• Bring out your dead
• Brown bread (Cockney rhyming slang for dead)
• Brush with death
• Cake or death (line from Eddie Izzard comedy)
• Catch your death of cold
• Chivalry is not dead
• Cot death
• Cowards may die many times before their death
• Cut out the dead wood
• Cut someone dead
• Dance of death
• Dead Man Walking (Helen Prejean book)
• Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (Steve Martin movie)
• Dead Ringer For Love (Meatloaf song)
• Dead air
• Dead and buried
• Dead and gone
• Dead cat bounce
• Dead cinch
• Dead duck
• Dead easy
• Dead end
• Dead from the neck up
• Dead giveaway
• Dead heads
• Dead heat
• Dead in the water
• Dead issue
• Dead letter
• Dead loss
• Dead man walking
• Dead meat
• Dead men tell no tales
• Dead men's shoes
• Dead of night
• Dead of winter
• Dead on arrival
• Dead on time
• Dead presidents
• Dead reckoning
• Dead ringer
• Dead to rights
• Dead to the world
• Dead white European male (derogatory reference to someone who has an unjustified reputation)
• Dead white male
• Dead wood
• Death In Venice (Dirk Bogade / Luchino Visconti movie)
• Death On The Nile (Agatha Christie book)
• Death On The Orient Express (Agatha Christie book)
• Death Valley (tourist attraction in Arizona USA)
• Death by PowerPoint
• Death by a thousand cuts
• Death by chocolate
• Death by committee
• Death by misadventure
• Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down
• Death metal
• Death of a Salesman (play by Arthur Miller)
• Death trap
• Dice with death
• Dick and Jane is dead (Encyclopaedia Britannica advertising slogan)
• Die a death
• Do something to death
• Do you want a shape like a bra? Or do you want a shape like a woman? (Warner's Body Bra advertising slogan)
• Does a wooden horse have a hickory dick?
• Doesn't have a jealous bone in his body
• Domestos kills all known germs - Dead! (Domestos Bleach advertising slogan)
• Done to death
• Down among the dead men
• Drop dead
• Drop dead gorgeous
• Drop dead list
• Drop down dead
• Drop the Dead Donkey (BBC comedy television series)
• Face card (the jack queeen or king in a set of playing cards)
• Fate worse than death
• Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
• Figure painting (a form of painting in which the human body is the subject)
• Flogging a dead horse
• Fruiting body
• Game set and match
• Give me liberty or give me death
• Given up for dead
• God is dead (philosophical comment by Friedrich Nietzsche)
• Good and dead
• Got your heart set on
• Grim death

• Grip of death
• Group of death (the most difficult or competitive group in a sports tournament)
• Hang by the neck until dead
• Hang him out to dry
• Hang on like grim death
• He's dead Jim (A catchphrase from Star Trek)
• Heavenly body
• Horsy set
• I see dead people (The Sixth Sense)
• I wouldn't be caught dead
• If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?
• If it ain't Stiff it ain't worth a f*ck (Stiff Records advertising slogan)
• In at the death
• In the midst of life we are in death
• Into the valley of death rode the six hundred
• Keep a stiff upper lip
• Keep body and soul together
• Kicking dead whales down the beach
• Kill stone dead
• Kills bugs dead (Raid advertising slogan)
• Kiss of death
• Knock 'em dead
• Left for dead
• Let the dead bury the dead
• Life after death
• Life and death struggle
• Like being savaged by a dead sheep
• Like death warmed up
• Look death in the eye
• Loud enough to waken the dead
• Matter of life and death
• Merchant of death
• Milk. It does a body good (Milk Marketing Board advertising slogan)
• More dead than alive
• Near death experience
• Never speak ill of the dead
• Nothing is certain but death and taxes
• Numbered with the dead
• On death row
• On pain of death
• On your mark, get set, go
• Out of the jaws of death
• Over my dead body
• Play dead
• Put on the wooden overcoat
• Put the fear of death into someone
• Put to death
• Raise the dead
• Ready set go
• Ready, get set, go
• Rictus grin
• Rigor mortis
• Roll over and play dead
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (play by Tom Stoppard)
• Scared stiff
• Scared to death
• Set Fire to the Rain (Adele song)
• Set a thief to catch a thief
• Set eyes on
• Set foot in
• Set forth
• Set great store by
• Set in concrete
• Set in motion
• Set in train
• Set of wheels
• Set sail
• Set straight
• Set the Thames on fire
• Set the record straight
• Set the stage
• Set the world on fire
• Set the world to rights
• Set tongues wagging
• Set your cap at
• Set your face against something
• Set your hair on fire
• Set your heart on something
• Set your mind at ease
• Set your sights on
• Set your stall out
• Set your teeth on edge
• Set yourself apart
• Sick to death of
• So round, so firm, so fully packed (Lucky Strike Cigarettes advertising slogan)
• Stiff competition
• Stiffed for the fee
• Stops body odour (Lifebouy Soap advertising slogan)
• Straight laced
• Tense nervous headache
• The Angel of Death (Nickname of Josef Mengele)
• The Body Guard (Nickname of Baron Davis)
• The Day of the Dead (Horror movie)
• The Hypochondriac's Guide To Life And Death (Gene Weingarten book)
• The King is dead, long live the King
• The Living Death (Nickname of Lew Jenkins)
• The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll (Bob Dylan song)
• The Masque of the Red Death
• The body is still warm
• The body of evidence
• The only good Indian is a dead Indian
• The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated
• The rot has set in
• The stage is set
• The truth shall set you free
• The valley of the shadow of death (line from the Lord's Prayer)
• The wages of sin is death
• This precious stone set in the silver sea, this sceptered isle
• Tickled to death
• Till Death Us Do Part (BBC comedy television series)
• Until death do us part
• Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire
• Vacation is a world where there are no locks on the doors or the mind or the body (Club Med Resorts advertising slogan)
• Wall of death
• Wanted, dead or alive
• Wardrobe malfunction (when an item of clothing slips out of place to expose part of the body - typically a woman's breast)
• Whispering Death (Nickname of Michael Holding - West Indies cricketer)
• Win the wooden spoon
• Wooden Heart (Elvis Presley song)
• Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye (Beatles song lyric)
• You too can have a body like mine (Charles Atlas advertising slogan)
• You'll be the death of me
• You're a long time dead