English-language idioms

English grammar
Adjectives Adverbs English articles Clauses (in English) Collocation (in English) Compounds Conditionals Conjunctions Determiners Gender Idiom (in English) Interjections Inversion Nouns Pronouns Phrases Plurals Possessives Prepositions Verbs Auxiliaries, contractions Irregular verbs Modal verbs deduction habits and past facts Passive voice Phrasal verbs Subjunctive Verb usage Grammar disputes

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.

An idiom is a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words.^[1][2] In another definition, an idiom is a speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements.^[3] In idioms, usually English learners would have a hard time understanding the real meaning if they did not have an English idioms dictionary.^[4] English has thousands of idioms.^[5] Most of English idioms are informal.^[6]

This is a dynamic list and 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
• Cliché

References

Articles related to the English language   Linguistics Description of the English language Grammar Phonology Stress and reduced vowels Orthography Alphabet Braille Dialects Language history Phonological history History of the English language Anglo-Frisian Old English Anglo-Norman language Middle English Early Modern English Modern English   Phonological history General Old English Vowels Great Vowel Shift low unrounded vowels low back vowels high back vowels high front vowels diphthongs changes before historic /l/ changes before historic /r/ trisyllabic laxing Consonants rhoticity flapping t-glottalization l-vocalization consonant clusters h-dropping wh th th-alveolarization th-fronting ð (eth) þ (thorn) th-debuccalization th-stopping Dialects and accents of Modern English by continent Europe United Kingdom England   Varieties by common name Barrovian Black Country Brummie Bristolian Cheshire Cockney "Mockney" Cornish Cumbrian East Anglian East Midlands Essex Estuary Geordie Kentish Lancastrian Mackem Mancunian Multicultural London Norfolk Northern Pitmatic Potteries Received Pronunciation Scouse Southern Suffolk Sussex West Country "Mummerset" West Midlands Yorkshire   Varieties by geographic location East of England Essex Norfolk Suffolk East Midlands North Cheshire Cumbria [Barrow] Lancashire Manchester Merseyside Sunderland Tyneside Yorkshire South Kent Thames Estuary [Multicultural London] Sussex West Country Bristol Cornwall West Midlands Black Country Birmingham Stoke-on-Trent Northern Ireland Mid Ulster Ulster Scots Scotland Highlands Lowlands Wales Cardiff Gower Ireland Dublin D4 South-West Cork Supraregional Ulster Channel Islands Alderney Guernsey Jersey Elsewhere Gibraltar Isle of Man Malta North and South America United States   Varieties by common name African American Vernacular Appalachian Baltimorese Boston Brooklynese Cajun California Chicago / Detroit Chicano Delaware Valley General American Great Lakes High Tider Miami Midland Midwestern New England New Mexican New York New York Latino Old Virginia Ozark Pacific Northwestern Pennsylvania Dutch Philadelphia Pittsburghese Rhode Island Southern Texan Upper Midwestern Western Vermont Yat Yeshivish Yooper   Varieties by geographic location Delaware Valley / Mid-Atlantic Philadelphia Baltimore Midland Pittsburgh Midwest Inland North / Great Lakes Upper Midwest Upper Michigan New England Boston / Maine Rhode Island Vermont New York City New York Latino North South Acadiana Appalachia Miami New Orleans Down East Ozarks Texas West California New Mexico Pacific Northwest Canada Aboriginal Maritimer Cape Breton Lunenburg Newfoundland Ottawa Valley Twang Pacific Northwest Quebec Caribbean Bahamas Barbados Dominican Republic Jamaica Puerto Rico Trinidad Elsewhere Bermuda Falkland Islands Guyana Oceania Australia Aboriginal General Strine Southern Torres Strait Western Elsewhere Fiji New Zealand Palau Solomon Islands Other continents Africa Cameroon Kenya Liberia Malawi Namibia Nigeria Sierra Leone South Africa Uganda Asia Bangladesh Brunei Burma or Myanmar Hong Kong India Malaysia Nepal Pakistan Philippines Singapore Sri Lanka Modern Germanic languages and dialects North Germanic West Scandinavian Bergensk Elfdalian Faroese Gøtudanskt Icelandic Jamtlandic Norwegian Bokmål Nynorsk Sognamål Trøndersk Valdris Vestlandsk Vikværsk East Scandinavian Bornholmsk Dalecarlian Danish Insular Danish Jutlandic South Perkerdansk Gutnish Kalix Kebabnorsk Kiruna Luleå Norrland Småländska South Swedish Scanian Stockholm Rinkeby Uppländska Västgötska Westrobothnian Swedish Åland Estonia Finland Ostrobothnia West Germanic Anglo- Frisian English North Frisian Saterland Frisian Scots West Frisian Low Franconian Dutch Hollandic Flemish Brabantian Limburgish Meuse-Rhenish Afrikaans Low German/ Low Saxon Dutch Low Saxon Northern Low Saxon Westphalian Eastphalian Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch Brandenburgisch High German Standard German German Swiss Austrian Central German Ripuarian Moselle Franconian Luxembourgish Lorraine Franconian Palatine German Hessian Thuringian Upper Saxon Erzgebirgisch Lusatian-Silesian Berlin-Brandenburgish Upper German East Franconian South Franconian Northern Bavarian Central Bavarian Southern Bavarian Swabian Low Alemannic High Alemannic Highest Alemannic Swiss German Yiddish Dictionaries of English Old and Middle English An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Dict. of Old English Middle English Dictionary Historic Edward Phillips' (1658) John Kersey's (1702) Nathan Bailey's (1721) Samuel Johnson's (1755) Noah Webster's (1828) Century (1889–91) American English American Heritage Dict. of American English Dict. of American Regional English Imperial Dictionary New Oxford American Oxford American Random House Webster's Webster's New World Webster's Third New International World Book Dictionary British English Chambers Collins Oxford English, Concise Oxford English, Shorter Oxford English, Historical Thesaurus, Oxford Dictionary of English Penguin Canadian English List of Canadian English dictionaries Australian English Australian National Australian Oxford Macquarie Online Wiktionary Collaborative International Dict. of English OmegaWiki Urban Dictionary Wordnik Learners / ESL Cambridge Advanced Learner's Collins COBUILD Advanced Longman Dict. of Contemporary English Macmillan English Dict. for Advanced Learners Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's Oxford Advanced Learner's   Geopolitical use English-speaking world Click on a coloured area to see an article about English in that country or region   Further links Articles English-speaking world History of the English language British Empire English in the Commonwealth of Nations Lists List of countries by English-speaking population List of countries where English is an official language   Countries and territories where English (or English Creole) is the national language or the native language of the majority Africa Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Americas Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda The Bahamas Barbados Belize Bermuda British Virgin Islands Canada Cayman Islands Dominica Falkland Islands Grenada Guyana Jamaica Montserrat Saba Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Sint Eustatius Sint Maarten South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Islands United States United States Virgin Islands Europe Guernsey Ireland Isle of Man Jersey United Kingdom Oceania Australia New Zealand Norfolk Island Pitcairn Islands   Countries and territories where English is an official language, but not the majority first language Africa Botswana Cameroon The Gambia Ghana Kenya Lesotho Liberia Malawi Mauritius Namibia Nigeria Rwanda Sierra Leone Somaliland South Africa South Sudan Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe Americas Puerto Rico Asia Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Hong Kong India Pakistan Philippines Singapore Europe Gibraltar Malta Oceania American Samoa Cook Islands Fiji Guam Kiribati Marshall Islands Micronesia Nauru Niue Northern Mariana Islands Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tokelau Tuvalu Vanuatu Dependencies shown in italics.

Notes

1. ↑ The life of an agrarian community depends on the success of the local crops, which in turn depends on rain. In pre-industrial times, rain was widely appreciated as essential for 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.”."