VOCABULARY - IDIOMS

Take (Someone) to the Cleaners

Meaning: 1) Swindle; 2) defeat badly

Take a Deep Dive (Into)

Meaning: Explore something extensively

Take a Flyer

Meaning: To take a rise; especially to make a speculative investment

Take a Gander

Meaning: Go to take a look at something

Take a Hike

Meaning: Go away

Take A Powder

Meaning: To leave, especially in order to avoid a difficult situation

Take a Rain Check

Meaning: Decline an invitation but suggest that you’ll accept it at a later time.

Take Five (Ten)

Meaning: Take a short break of five (ten) minutes

Take Five

Meaning: To take one brief (about five minutes) rest period

Take It Easy

Meaning: 1) Relax, rest; 2) (as a command) Calm down!

Take It Easy

Meaning: Don’t hurry; relax; don’t get angry

Take It Easy

Meaning: When you relax, or do things at a comfortable pace, you take it easy.

Take It on The Chin

Meaning: Be attacked; suffer an attack

Take It or Leave It (command)

Meaning: You must decide now whether you will accept this proposal

Take Someone to Task

Meaning: Reprimand someone strongly

Take Something with a Pinch (grain) of Salt

Meaning: If you take what someone says with a pinch of salt, you do not completely believe it.

Take the Cake

Meaning: Be the most extreme instance

Take the Edge Off (of Something)

Meaning: To slightly improve something negative

Take the Fifth

Meaning: Refuse to answer because answering might incriminate or cause problems for you

Take the Gloves Off

Meaning: Negotiate in a more aggressive way

Take the High Road

Meaning: Refuse to descend to immoral activities or personal attacks

Take The Mickey (Piss) (Out Of Someone)

Meaning: Make fun of or ridicule someone

Take the Shine Off (Something)

Meaning: To do something that diminishes a positive event

Take the Starch out of (Someone)

Meaning: Make someone less confident or less arrogant

Take The Wind Out of Someone’s Sails

Meaning: To reduce someone’s confidence, ofte by doing something unexpected

Take Your Life in Your Hands

Meaning: Undergo extreme risk

Take Your Medicine

Meaning: Accept something unpleasant, for example, punishment, without protesting or complaining

Take Your Time

Meaning: Don’t hurry, work at a relaxed pace

Taste of Your Own Medicine

Meaning: The same unpleasant experience or treatment that one has given to others

Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

Meaning: To change someone’s long-established habits. Usually used in the

Tear One’s Hair out

Meaning: Be extremely worried or frustrated

Tear-Jerker

Meaning: A film or book that makes you cry

Tee Many Martoonies

Meaning: Too many martinis, scrambled to suggest drunkenness

Tell It to the Marines

Meaning: I don’t believe you; you must think I’m gullible.

Tempest in a Teapot

Meaning: A commotion about something unimportant

Ten a Penny

Meaning: Very common or ordinary.; Something that is plentiful or abundant.; Lacking in value due to its abundance

Ten to One

Meaning: Something very likely

Test the Waters

Meaning: Experiment with something cautiously

Test the Waters

Meaning: Try something out in a preliminary way

Tie the Knot

Meaning: Get married

Tighten the Screws

Meaning: Increase pressure on someone

Tight-Lipped

Meaning: secretive, unwilling to explain something

Till the Cows Come Home

Meaning: For a very long time; indefinitely.

Time is Money

Meaning: time is valuable, so don’t waste it.

Tip of the Iceberg

Meaning: A small, visible part of a much larger problem

Tip One’s Hand

Meaning: Reveal one’s advantages; reveal useful information that one possesses

TLC

Meaning: Tender Loving Care

To be A Peach

Meaning: Someone or something that is extremely good, impressive, or attractive

To be Smitten With Someone

Meaning: To be completely captivated by someone and feel immense joy

To be someone’s One and Only

Meaning: To be unique to the other person

To be the Apple of Someone’s Eye

Meaning:

• To be loved and treasured by someone
• the person of whom one is extremely fond, favorite, loving
• most favourite person
• someone most cherished, above others
• someone or something that is very precious
• someone or something that is very important to someone
• someone or something that someone likes very much

To Bear Fruit

Meaning: To develop in a profitable or positive way

To Bear Fruit

Meaning: To develop in a profitable or positive way

To Carpool

Meaning: To travel to the same place with a group of people in one car. e.g. work/school

To Each His Own

Meaning: People have different tastes.

To Get Cold Feet

Meaning: To experience reluctance or fear

To Have a Chip on One’s Shoulder

Meaning: To be combative, to be consistently argumentative

To Have Butterflies In Your Stomach

Meaning: To be nervous

To Have One For the Road

Meaning: To have one last (alcoholic) drink before you go home

To Pay an Arm and a Leg

Meaning: A very high cost

To Pop (one’s) Cherry

Meaning: To do something for the first time

To Pull Someone’s Leg

Meaning: Lie playfully

To Run Hot and Cold

Meaning: To be unable to make up one’s mind

To the Letter

Meaning: Exactly (said of instructions or procedures)

Toe the Line

Meaning: Accept authority, follow the rules

Tone-Deaf

Meaning: Not good at perceiving the impact of one’s words, insensitive

Tongue-in-Cheek

Meaning: Said ironically; not meant to be taken seriously

Too Busy Fighting Alligators to Drain the Swamp

Meaning: So occupied with multiple challenges that one can’t keep the big picture in mind

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth

Meaning: A project works best if there is input from a limited number of people

Too Many Chiefs and Not Enough Indians

Meaning: Everyone wants to be a leader, and no one wants to do the actual work

Too Many To Shake A Stick At

Meaning: A large number

Toot Your Own Horn

Meaning: Brag; emphasize one’s own contributions

Top Banana

Meaning: - The boss, the leader; - The main comic in a burlesque show.; - The head person, as of a group or project.; - A top performer in show business; specif., the star comedian in a burlesque show.; - The most important person in any group.

Toss a Wrench (Spanner) Into

Meaning: Sabotage; cause a process to stop

Touch Base

Meaning: Meet briefly with someone

Touch One’s Heart

Meaning: Affect someone emotionally, be touching

Touch Water

Meaning: Be launched. Said of a boat.

Tough Cookie

Meaning: A very determined person

Tough Cookie

Meaning: Someone who can endure hardship; especially,a strong negotiator

Tough Sledding

Meaning: Difficult progress

Turn a Blind Eye

Meaning: (to) Choose not to notice something

Turn on a Dime

Meaning: Quickly reverse direction or position

Turn Someone Inside Out

Meaning: To cause strong emotional turmoil; to completely change someone

Turn Something on Its Head

Meaning: Reverse something, cause something to be done in a new way

Turn Turtle

Meaning: Capsize, turn over

Turn the Corner

Meaning: To begin to improve after a problem

Turn the Tables

Meaning: Reverse a situation

Turnabout Is Fair Play

Meaning: If you suffer from the same suffering you have inflicted on others, that’s only fair

Twenty-Four Seven

Meaning: At any time

Twist the Knife (in Deeper)

Meaning: Make someone’s suffering worse

Twist the Knife (in Deeper)

Meaning: Make someone’s suffering worse

Two a Penny

Meaning: Ordinary, inexpensive

Two Peas in A Pod

Meaning: Two people who are very similar in appearance

Thank God It’s Friday (TGIF)

Meaning: Let’s be happy that the workweek is over!; One is satisfied because the work week has ended and the weekend has come.

That Ship Has Sailed

Meaning: That opportunity has passed.

That’s Music to My Ears

Meaning: I am very happy to hear this.

That’s a Stretch

Meaning: What you are suggesting is very difficult to believe; I am very skeptical

That’s All She Wrote

Meaning: That was the end of the story.

The Apple Never Falls Far From the Tree

Meaning: Family characteristics are usually inherited

The Birds and the Bees

Meaning: Human sexuality and reproduction

The Cat Is Out of the Bag

Meaning: The secret has been revealed.

The Coast Is Clear

Meaning: We are unobserved; it is safe to proceed.

The Cherry On the Cake

Meaning: The final thing that makes something perfect

The Deck Is (The Cards Are)

Meaning: Stacked Against You Unfavorable conditions exist.

The Jig Is Up

Meaning: A secret illicit activity has been exposed; your trickery is finished

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

Meaning: Although something may seem superficially new, it has not altered the basic situation.

The Only Game in Town

Meaning: The sole option for a particular service.

The Powers That Be

Meaning: People in charge, often used when the speaker does not want to identify them.

The Real McCoy

Meaning: A genuine item

The Story Has Legs

Meaning: People are continuing to pay attention to the story.

The Time is Ripe

Meaning: If you say that the time is ripe, you mean that it is a suitable point for a particular activity

The Walls Have Ears We

Meaning: may be overheard; be careful what you say

The Walls Have Ears

Meaning: We may be overheard; be careful what you say

The Whole Enchilada

Meaning: All of something.

The Whole Shebang

Meaning: Everything, all the parts of something

The World Is Your Oyster

Meaning: You have many opportunities and choices.

There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Meaning: I could easily have done what that person did.

There’s More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

Meaning: There’s more than one way of achieving a certain goal.

There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Meaning: Nothing is given to you without some expectation of something in return.

Thin On The Ground

Meaning: Rare, seldom encountered

Think Big

Meaning: Consider ambitious plans; avoid becoming overly concerned with details

Think Outside the Box

Meaning: Try to solve a problem in an original way; think creatively

Think Tank

Meaning: A group of experts engaged in ongoing studies of a particular subject; a policy study group

Think Tank

Meaning: A group of experts engaged in ongoing studies of a particular subject; a policy study group

Third Rail

Meaning: A topic so sensitive that it is dangerous to raise. This is especially used in political contexts

Third Time’s a Charm

Meaning: Even if you fail at something twice, you may well succeed the third time.

Thirty-Thousand-Foot View

Meaning: A very broad or general perspective

This Has (Person X) Written All Over It

Meaning: [Person X] would really like or be well suited to this.

This Is Not Your Father’s ____

Meaning: This item has been much updated from its earlier versions.

Three Sheets to the Wind

Meaning: Very drunk

Through the Grapevine

Meaning: Via gossip

Through Thick and Thin

Meaning: to stay loyal and supportive no matter the difficulties or circumstances. It implies enduring both good and bad times together.

Throw a Wet Blanket on (Something)

Meaning: Discourage plans for something

Throw a Wrench Into

Meaning: To sabotage; to cause to fail

Throw Caution to the Wind

Meaning: To act in a daring way, without forethough

Throw Down the Gauntlet

Meaning: To issue a challenge

Throw Elbows

Meaning: Be combative; be aggressive (physically or figuratively)

Throw in the Towel

Meaning: To give up, admit defeat

Throw Someone for a Loop

Meaning: Deeply surprise someone; catch someone off guard

Throw Someone Under the Bus

Meaning: Sacrifice someone else’s interests for your own personal gain

Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water

Meaning: Eliminate something good while discarding the bad parts of something

Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water

Meaning: To discard something valuable or important while disposing of something worthless

Throw The Book At

Meaning: Prosecute legally as strongly as possible

Throw the Fight

Meaning: Intentionally lose a contest, usually in collusion with gamblers

Throw the Game

Meaning: Intentionally lose a contest, usually in collusion with gamblers

Throw the Match

Meaning: Intentionally lose a contest, usually in collusion with gamblers

Thumbs-Up

Meaning: Approval

Train Wreck

Meaning: Anything that develops in a disastrous way

Trash Talk

Meaning: Insults directed at one’s opponent in a sporting event or contest

Tread Water

Meaning: Maintain a current situation without improvement or decline

Trial Balloon

Meaning: A test of someone’s or the public’s reaction

Trip the Light Fantastic

Meaning: Dance well; do ballroom dancing

take the cake

Meaning: - being the best in a competition - losing under awful circumstances - the worst outcome in a situation - the final straw during a series of bad events - something ridiculous a person says