Pre-Midterm Idioms Flashcards
Red-letter day
Day of happiness, time of rejoicing (holidays are red-letter days on our calendars)
ex: My red-letter day came when i was chosen as senior class president.
I’m from Missouri
a skeptic one, who is not easily convinced.
ex: You might swallow his promises, but I’m from Missouri.
To let sleeping dogs lie
To let well enough alone, to avoid stirring up old hostilities.(unfriendliness of opposition)
ex: The lawyer wanted to open up the old case but his partner advised him to let sleeping dogs lie.
Thumbs down
Signal of rejection (Roman emperors could condemn a gladiator who fought poorly by turning their thumbs down)
ex: My father turned thumbs down on our plan to hitchhike to Florida during Easter.
cause célèbre
A famous law case or controversy
ex: It was a minor dispute, but the ambitious lawyer sought to turn it into a cause célèbre.
One swallow does not make a summer
Don’t jump to conclusions based on incomplete evidance.
ex: Sure, the Yankees won their opening game but one swallow does now make a summer.
A bitter pill to swallow
A humiliating defeat
ex: It was a bitter pill to swallow for the famous billiard player to be overwhelmed by the 12-year-old girl.
An ax to grind(sharpen, smooth)
Having a selfish motive in the background.
ex: I am always dubious about the motives of a man who tells me that he has no ax to grind.
Sour grapes
Claiming to despise what you cannot have.
To disparage something that you cannot have (from Aesop’s fable about the fox who called the grapes sour because he could not reach them)
ex: Marcia said that she did not want to be on Principal’s Honor Roll anyway, but we knew it was just sour grapes on her part.
To swap horses in midstream
To vote against a candidate running for a reelection, to change one’s mind.
ex: The mayor asked for our support, pointing out how foolish it would be to swap horses in midstream.
To cool one’s heels
To be kept waiting.
ex: The shrewd (having or showing sharp powers of judgment) mayor made the angry delegates cool their heels in his outer office.
A red herring
A diversion.
Something that diverts attention from the main issue (a red herring drawn across a fox’s path destroys the scent)
ex: We felt that the introduction of his war record was a red herring to keep us from inquiring into his graft.
