List of English-language idioms

This is a list of notable idioms in the English language.

An idiom is a common word or phrase with a culturally understood meaning that differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest. For example, an English speaker would understand the phrase "kick the bucket" to mean "to die" – and also to actually kick a bucket. Furthermore, they would understand when each meaning is being used in context. An idiom is not to be confused with other figures of speech such as a metaphor, which invokes an image by use of implicit comparisons (e.g., "the man of steel" ); a simile, which invokes an image by use of explicit comparisons (e.g., "faster than a speeding bullet"); and hyperbole, which exaggerates an image beyond truthfulness (e.g., like "missed by a mile" ). Idioms are also not to be confused with proverbs, which are simple sayings that express a truth based on common sense or practical experience.

This is an incomplete list that may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Visit Wiktionary's Category for over eight thousand idioms.

See also

• List of 19th-century English-language idioms
• Siamese twins (linguistics)
• Wiktionary:Appendix:English idioms
• Idiom in English language

References

Notes

1. ↑ Years ago, most agriculture depended on rain. The life of everyone in a village depended on the success of the local crops which in turn depended on rain. Rain was essential to survival.
2. ↑ Originally a hunting term.
3. ↑ Originally a British slang term for a quadruple amputee during World War I.
4. ↑ Since both "off one's trolley" and "off one's rocker" became popular in the late 1890s about the same time streetcars were installed in major American cities, and since "rocker", like "trolley", means the wheel or runner that makes contact with an overhead electric cable, it is likely that the "rocker" of the expression carries the same meaning as "trolley". "Off your trolley" may refer to the fact that when the wires are "off the trolley", the vehicle no longer receives an electric current and is, therefore, rendered inoperative.
5. ↑ Chink here is generally used in the sense of fissure; it may also be used as a derogatory racial slur.
6. ↑ Originating with the English writer Francis Quarles who wrote:

   "Wee spend our mid-day sweat, or mid-night oyle;

   Wee tyre the night in thought; the day in toyle."

7. ↑ At the turn of the century, wearing very long sideburns – called mutton chops was common. A bust in the chops was to get hit in the face.
8. ↑ The phrase first appears in English in the Geneva Bible (1560), in Job 19:20, which provides a literal translation of the original Hebrew

   "I haue escaped with the skinne of my tethe."

9. ↑ Its 19th-century predecessor is seen in the line "It would have been best for Merlin... to quit and call it half a day", from the novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) by Mark Twain (page 271)
10. ↑ The original text in Mario Puzo's book The Godfather (1969) read: “The fish means that Luca Brasi is sleeping on the bottom of the ocean,” he said. “It’s an old Sicilian message.”."