W

Wag the Dog
Dates back to 1907 and means the subsidary (small) part controlling the major part. This was the title of a 1990's movie.

Wearing the pants
Being in charge, especially refers to women who are dominant over their husbands. In days of yore at least, men were supposed to be both the dominant force in the family and be the only family member to wear trousers. Thus a woman who wore trousers was considered to be in domineering.

Well Heeled
Well heeled or 'wealthy'. This is a cock fighting term. The most dangerious cocks were the ones with the large and sharpest heels.

Wet Behind The Ears
This phrase is used to state that someone is very young or, more often, inexperienced. When animals are born, they are wet from the amniotic fluid and the birthing blood. After giving birth, the mother animal licks her offspring clean with her tongue. This also stimulates them into taking their first breath. At that point, they begin to nurse and their fur dries. Due to the folds of skin, the last place to dry is often behind the ears, at the base. Thus, they are so newly born that they are still wet behind the ears.

Where there's muck there's brass
There is money to be made even with dirty jobs. This term started in England where money was once called 'brass'. Brass is rarely if never used today to refer to money.

Word in your shell
like Coming from a 'shell-like' ear, it simply means, 'I would like to talk to you'.

Windy City
Chicago is the Windy City because of the breezes from Lake Michigan.

Word for Word
Meaning exact repetition of someone else's words. This term dates back to the 1300's in Chaucer's 'I could folwe word for word Virgile'.

Whole nine yards
Comes from World War II fighter pilots, whose planes typically wereoutfitted with enough machine-gun ammunition to extend 27 feet. If a pilotexpended all his ammunition on a mission, he would say, "I gave them thewhole nine yards".

White Bread
This term refers to the supposed bland and uninteresting nature of white middle class culture in the US. This group is thought to be more trouble than is worth.

Wild and Woolly
Meaning unrestrained and law-less. Could have originated in the wild west.A site visitor also emailed the following:This relates to the snagging of wool from the wild ish sheep and animals in the past heather bound hills of Scotland and Wales

Wolf In Sheep's
Clothing A wolf in sheep's clothing is someone who is secretly out to harm you, while putting on a friendly face. Jesus first used this phrase to refer to people who teach false religions: "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves."

Who Let The Cat Out Of The Bag
The origins of this phrase come from when farmers would sell chickens at market. Most of the time they would just throw the chickens in a bag and sell them as however many were supposidly in there. But cats were cheaper than chickens so many times farmers would put a cat into the bag with the chickens and if someone suspected something they would open the bag. At that point the cat would jump out of the bag, thus giving away the secret.