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OED's earliest citation can be found here, which is from 1969. Well, we've preserved nearly every movable object (steam, that is) on British Railways, but perhaps the greatest unpreserved loss has be …

There seem to be two parts, or "stages," to the answer here. When and why was "down the road" used to refer to the future in a figurative way? When and why did this expression become idiomatic in En …

The early use from The London Magazine cited in ODO can be found online here under the name Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, which is the same periodical. 8000 Seapoys, 20000 horse, and 20 piece …

The earliest citation in Green's Dictionary of Slang for "last mile" in the prison sense is from 1932. She trod the ‘last mile’ bravely, if not with dignity. L.E. Lawes Twenty Thousand Years in …

Early uses of the phrase "to a fare-thee-well" and its earlier variant "to a fare-you-well" found in newspaper archives provide a possible theory: that the expression first meant besting someone by a …

The OED offers a phrase definition and early citations, but no etymology for the phrase. (c) first (also second, next, etc.) time around: on the specified instance of a recurring event or occasion. …

There are multiple senses of the phrase "on edge," so to some extent it depends on what meaning you're referring to, but most senses appear to derive from the longer phrase set (a person's) teeth on e …

Is "copypasta" used only with a derogatory connotation to indicate undesirable or unnecessary instances of "copy and paste"? The answer seems to be no, at least from the perspective of those who mak …

A search of newspaper archives reveals use of never ever far before the date attested by OED. Specifically, 1772 In St. Stephen's Chapel, in printed Volumes, in Pamphlets, or from a Stage in Moor …

Using the phrase "Liar! Liar!" seems to be older than the popular phrase associated with burning trousers. OED provides an early citation of the phrase used twice in a row: a1607 H. Chettle Tra …

A citation in the OED under the headword "world" is earlier than any citations I could find in corpora. Long as I live, I stand a World between you, And keep you distant as the Poles asunder. …

Green's Dictionary of Slang offers this entry under the headword shot. (orig. Aus., also all shot, shot at, shot away, shot through) of a person, exhausted or in bad shape. A variant of this is fi …

My guess is that the phrase "spoil the story," which dates back as far as 1926, morphed into the contemporary term "spoiler." Before we became saturated by a media landscape that threatens to subvert …

In 1788, a in New Travels in the United States of America, Jean Pierre Brissot wrote that John Hancock had "the virtues and the address of popularism." It went on to describe Hancock as "more beloved …

I couldn't find anything from the 18th century, but I did come across uses related to horse racing that predate OED's citation at 1912. Given the perfunctory nature of the references as early as 1842 …