IDIOMS VI

The Word's The Thing

Dr. Louis D. Appel

Idiomatic expressions are an essential part of English, adding color and variety to everyday language. Can you name the idioms that describes the common situations below.

 

1. Quit, give up

2. Face a difficult future 

3. Stay firm in your decision

4. Be given a lesser role or position

5. Be careful in your speech and behavior

6. Request to a person to not reveal a secret

7. Keep saying the same thing over and over 

8. To a great of elaborate extent, as in clothing

9. Warning to someone of a big surprise to come

10. Lose it, mentally or emotionally (due to stress)

11. Exaggerate the importance of something trivial

12. Sell or dispose of something by deception or fraud

13. A situation where the outcome could go either way

14. Impulsive, spontaneous, done without planning or preparation

15. Understand what a person is saying, thought it's not stated explicitly

16. Get someone other than yourself to do something you don't want to do

17. Begin to understand and deal with a problem in a direct and effective way

18. Support and defend someone, especially when he or she is having difficulties

19. A missed opportunity that may not come again, or something you could once do - but no longer

20. Take something to a place where it is not needed because a large amount of it is already there  

already so much of it there

 

Answers:

 

1. Throw in the towel

2. Have a hard row to hoe

3. Stick to your guns

4. Take a back seat to or Play second fiddle

5. Mind your P's and Q's

6. Keep it under your hat

7. Like a broken record

8. Dress to the nines

9. Hold onto your hat

10. Go off the deep end

11. Make a mountain out of a molehill

12. Palm off

13. Touch and go

14. Spur of the moment

15. Read between the lines

16. Let George do it

17. Come to grips with

18. Go to bat for

19. That ship has sailed

20. Carry coals to Newcastle