Fine Tune Your English: Idiomatic Phrases Flashcards
Keep one’s fingers crossed
To wish good luck
A lion’s share
Major part
Naked truth
Without any falsehood
To get the sack
To be dismissed
To kick the bucket
To die
To blow hot and cold
To behave inconsistently
To have an axe to grind
To have private reasons for doing something
Achilles heel
Vulnerable spot
The die is cast
A decision was already made
One’s number is up
One is trouble
To make both ends meet
Trying to balances expenses and income
In the red
Having more liability than assets
To go off at a tangent
To move from one line of thought to another
To give short shrift
To treat someone curtly
Hobson’s choice
Choice
Shot in the arm
Results in renewed vigour
Indian summer
A short happy moment
A shot in the dark
A wild guess
Mumbo Jumbo
Grey show without any sincerity
To give one the cold shoulder
To intentionally ignore someone or treat someone in unfriendly way
Pandora’s box
Something that creates a lot of problems that we didn’t expect
Gordion knot
An extremely difficult and complicated problem
Sop to Cerebus
Something offered to appease someone
Between the devil and the deep sea
Between two great difficulties
The ugly duckling
Someone or something that is ugly and unsuccessful when young or new but will later become beautiful or successful
Sword of Damocles
A situation in which something very bad could happen at anytime
Apple of discord
The cause of a problem/ someone pr something that causes trouble or unhappiness
Sour grapes
Putting down something that one desires but cannot have
To clear the Aegean’s stable
Clear away corruption or perform a large and unpleasant task that has a long call for attention
Many a slip between the cup and the lip
Said to emphasize that certain things go wrong before something is finished
