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- A slice off a cut loaf is never missed
-
Used colloquially to describe having sexual intercourse with someone who is not a virgin, especially when they are in a relationship. The analogy refers to a loaf of bread; it is not readily apparent, once the end has been removed, exactly how many slices have been taken.
('You never miss a slice from a cut
loaf' is also used.)
- About as useful as a chocolate teapot
- Someone or something that is of no practical use is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
- Alike as two peas
- If people or things are as alike as two peas, they are identical.
- All the tea in China
- If someone won't do something for all the tea in China, they won't do it no matter how much money they are offered.
- All your eggs in one basket
- If you put all your eggs in one basket, you risk everything at once, instead of trying to spread the risk.
(This is often used as a negative imperative- 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket'. 'Have your eggs in one basket' is also used.)
- An apple a day keeps the doctor away
- Eating healthy food keeps you healthy.
- Apple of your eye
- Something or, more often, someone that is very special to you is the 'apple of your' eye.
- As cool as a cucumber
- If someone is as cool as a cucumber, they don't get worried by anything.
- As much use as a chocolate fire-guard
- A fire-guard is used in front of a fireplace for safety. A chocolate fire-guard is of no use. An alternative to 'As much use as a chocolate teapot'.
- As much use as a chocolate teapot
- Something that is as much use as a chocolate teapot is not useful at all.
- Back to the salt mine
- If someone says they have to go back to the salt mine, they have to return to work.
- Bad Apple
- A person who is bad and makes other bad is a bad apple.
- Bad egg
- A person who cannot be trusted is a bad egg.
Good egg is the opposite.
- Banana republic
- Banana republic is a term used for small countries that are dependent on a single crop or resource and governed badly by a corrupt elite.
- Banana skin
- (UK) A banana skin is something that is an embarrassment or causes problems.
- Bear fruit
- If something bears fruit, it produces positive results.
- Best thing since sliced bread
- If something is the best thing since sliced bread, it is excellent.
('The greatest thing since sliced bread' is also used.)
- Big Apple
- (USA) The Big Apple is New York.
- Big cheese
- The big cheese is the boss.
- Bread and butter
- Bread and butter issues are ones that affect people directly and in a very important way.
- Breadwinner
- Used to describe the person that earns the most money. For example - She's the breadwinner in the family.
- Bring home the bacon
- A person who brings home the bacon earns the money that a family live on.
- Bun in the oven
- If a woman has a bun in the oven, she is pregnant.
- Butter wouldn't melt in their mouth
- If someone looks as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouth, they look very innocent.
- Cake's not worth the candle
- If someone says that the cake's not worth the candle, they mean that the result will not be worth the effort put in to achieve it.
- Can't do it for toffee
- If you can't so something for toffee, you are incapable of doing something properly or to any sort of standard.
- Carrot and stick
- If someone offers a carrot and stick, they offer an incentive to do something combined with the threat of punishment.
- Chalk and cheese
- Things, or people, that are like chalk and cheese are very different and have nothing in common.
- Cheap as chips
- (UK) If something is very inexpensive, it is as cheap as chips.
- Cherry pick
- If people cherry pick, they choose things that support their position, while ignoring things that contradict it.
- Chew the cud
- If you chew the cud, you think carefully about something.
- Chew the fat
- If you chew the fat with someone, you talk at leisure with them.
- Cook the books
-
If people cook the books, they keep false accounts to make money illegally or avoid paying tax.
- Cook up a storm
- If someone cooks up a storm, they cause a big fuss or generate a lot of talk about something.
- Couch potato
- A couch potato is an extremely idle or lazy person who chooses to spend most of their leisure time horizontal in front of the TV and eats a diet that is mainly junk food.
- Crack a nut with a sledgehammer
- If you use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, you apply too much force to achieve a result.
('Jackhammer' is also used.)
- Cream of the crop
- The cream of the crop is the best there is.
- Cream rises to the top
- A good person or idea cannot go unnoticed for long, just as cream poured in coffee or tea eventually rises to the top.
- Crème de la crème
- The crème de la crème is the very best of something.
- Curate's egg
- (UK) If something is a bit of a curate's egg, it is only good in parts.
- Curry favour
- If people try to curry favour, they try to get people to support them.
('Curry favor' is the American spelling.)
- Cut the mustard
- (UK) If somebody or something doesn't cut the mustard, they fail or it fails to reach the required standard.
- Different kettle of fish
- If something is a different kettle of fish, it is very different from the other things referenced.
- Dine on ashes
- I someone is dining on ashes he or she is excessively focusing attention on failures or regrets for past actions.
- Don't cry over spilt milk
- When something bad happens and nothing can be done to help it people say, 'Don't cry over spilt milk'.
- Dropped like a hot cake
-
If something is dropped like a hot cake, it is rejected or disposed of very quickly.
- Duck soup
- (USA) If something is duck soup, it is very easy.
- Easy as beans
- Something that is so easy that anyone can do it is easy as beans.
- Easy as pie
- If something is easy as pie, it is very easy indeed.
- Easy peasy
- (UK) If something is easy peasy, it is very easy indeed.
('Easy peasy, lemon squeezy' is also used.)
- Eat humble pie
- If someone apologises and shows a lot of contrition for something they have done, they eat humble pie.
- Eat someone alive
- If you eat someone alive, you defeat or beat them comprehensively.
- Egg on your face
- If someone has egg on their face, they are made to look foolish or embarrassed.
- Eye candy
- When a person is very attractive, they can be described as eye candy - sweet to look at!
- Fall off the turnip truck
- (USA) If someone has just fallen off the turnip truck, they are uninformed, naive and gullible. (Often used in the negative)
- Fine words butter no parsnips
- This idiom means that it's easy to talk, but talk is not action.
- Finger in the pie
- If you have a finger in the pie, you have an interest in something.
- Flat as a pancake
- It is so flat that it is like a pancake- there is no head on that beer it is as flat as a pancake.
- Food for thought
- If something is food for thought, it is worth thinking about or considering seriously.
- Forbidden fruit
- Something enjoyable that is illegal or immoral is forbidden fruit.
- From soup to nuts
- If you do something from soup to nuts, you do it from the beginning right to the very end.
- Full of beans
- If someone's full of beans, they are very energetic.
- Glutton for punishment
- If a person is described as a glutton for punishment, the happily accept jobs and tasks that most people would try to get out of. A glutton is a person who eats a lot.
- Go bananas
- If you go bananas, you are wild with excitement, anxiety, or worry.
- Go fry an egg
- (USA) This is used to tell someone to go away and leave you alone.
- Go nuts
- If someone goes nuts, they get excited over something.
- Go pear-shaped
- If things have gone wrong, they have gone pear-shaped.
- Gone pear-shaped
- (UK) If things have gone pear-shaped they have either gone wrong or produced an unexpected and unwanted result.
- Good egg
- A person who can be relied on is a good egg.
Bad egg is the opposite.
- Grain of salt
- If you should take something with a grain of salt, you shouldn't necessarily believe it all.
('pinch of salt' is an alternative)
- Gravy train
- If someone is on the gravy train, they have found and easy way to make lots of money.
- Hard cheese
- (UK) Hard cheese means hard luck.
- Have your cake and eat it too
- If someone wants to have their cake and eat it too, they want everything their way, especially when their wishes are contradictory.
- Have your lunch handed to you
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If you have you lunch handed to you, you are outperformed and shown up by someone better.
- How do you like them apples
- (USA) This idiomatic expression is used to express surprise or shock at something that has happened. It can also be used to boast about something you have done.
- I should cocoa
- (UK) This idiom comes from 'I should think so', but is normally used sarcastically to mean the opposite.
- Icing on the cake
- This expression is used to refer to something good that happens on top of an already good thing or situation.
- In a nutshell
- This idiom is used to introduce a concise summary.
- In a pickle
- If you are in a pickle, you are in some trouble or a mess.
- In a pickle
- If you are in a pickle you are in some trouble or a mess.
- In the gravy
-
If you're in the gravy, you're rich and make money easily.
- In the soup
- If you're in the soup, you're in trouble.
- It's no use crying over spilt milk
- This idiom means that getting upset after something has gone wrong is pointless; it can't be changed so it should be accepted.
- Jam on your face
- If you say that someone has jam on their face, they appear to be caught, embarrassed or found guilty.
- Jam tomorrow
- (UK) This idiom is used when people promise good things for the future that will never come.
- Keen as mustard
- (UK) If someone is very enthusiastic, they are as keen as mustard.
- Know which side one's bread is buttered on
- If you know which side one's bread is buttered on, you know where your interests lie and will act accordingly to protect or further them.
- Know your onions
- If someone is very well-informed about something, they know their onions.
- Laugh to see a pudding crawl
- (UK) Someone who would laugh to see a pudding crawl is easily amused and will laugh at anything.
- Life is just a bowl of cherries
- This idiom means that life is simple and pleasant.
- Like giving a donkey strawberries
- (UK) If something is like giving a donkey strawberries, people fail to appreciate its value.
- Like peas in a pod
- If people or things are like peas in a pod, they look identical.
- Like taking candy from a baby
- (USA) If something is like taking candy from a baby, it is very easy to do.
- Like two peas in a pod
- Things that are like two peas in a pod are very similar or identical,
- Lose your lunch
- (UK) If you lose your lunch, you vomit.
- Low-hanging fruit
- Low-hanging fruit are things that are easily achieved.
- Make a meal
- If someone makes a meal of something, they spend too long doing it or make it look more difficult than it really is.
- Meat and drink
- If something is meat and drink to you, you enjoy it and are naturally good at it, though many find it difficult.
- Meat and potatoes
- The meat and potatoes is the most important part of something. A meat and potatoes person is someone who prefers plain things to fancy ones.
- Mutton dressed as lamb
- Mutton dressed as lamb is term for middle-aged or elderly people trying to look younger.
- Nest egg
- If you have some money saved for the future, it is a nest egg.
- Nice as pie
-
If a person is nice as pie, they are surprisingly very kind and friendly.
"After our argument, she was nice as pie!"
- Not know beans about
- (USA) If someone doesn't know beans about something, they know nothing about it.
- Not my cup of tea
- If something is not your cup of tea, you don't like it very much.
- Nutty as a fruitcake
- Someone who's nutty as a fruitcake is irrational or crazy.
(This can be shortened to 'a fruitcake'.)
- One bad apple
- The full form of this proverb is 'one bad apple spoils the barrel', meaning that a bad person, policy, etc, can ruin everything around it.
- One man's meat is another man's poison
- This idiom means that one person can like something very much, but another can hate it.
- Out to lunch
- If someone's out to lunch, they are crazy or out of touch.
- Over-egg the pudding
- (UK) If you over-egg the pudding, you spoil something by trying to improve it excessively. It is also used nowadays with the meaning of making something look bigger or more important than it really is. ('Over-egg' alone is often used in this sense.)
- Packed like sardines
- If a place is extremely crowded, people are packed like sardines, or packed in like sardines.
- Pie in the sky
- If an idea or scheme is pie in the sky, it is utterly impractical.
- Piece of cake
- If something is a piece of cake, it is really easy.
- Pieces of the same cake
- Pieces of the same cake are things that have the same characteristics or qualities.
- Pinch of salt
- If what someone says should be taken with a pinch of salt, then they exaggerate and distort things, so what they say shouldn't be believed unquestioningly.
('with a grain of salt' is an alternative.)
- Polish the apples
- (USA) Someone who polishes the apples with someone, tries to get into that person's favor.
- Polishing peanuts
- To work very hard at something for little or no return. In other words, wasting time on work which will not yield reasonable value.
- Proof of the pudding is in the eating
- This means that something can only be judged when it is tested or by its results. (It is often shortened to 'Proof of the pudding'.)
- Pull the fat from the fire
- If you pull the fat from the fire, you help someone in a difficult situation.
- Put all your eggs in one basket
- If you put all your eggs in one basket, you risk everything on a single opportunity which, like eggs breaking, could go wrong.
- Put some mustard on it!
- (USA) I think its used to encourage someone to throw a ball like a baseball hard or fast.
- Quarrel with bread and butter
- Bread and butter, here, indicate the means of one’s living. (That is why we say ‘he is the bread winner of the family’). If a sub-ordinate in an organisation is quarrelsome or if he is not patient enough to bear the reprimand he deserves, gets angry and retorts or provokes the higher-up, the top man dismisses him from the job. So, he loses the job that gave him bread and butter. Hence we say, he quarrelled with bread and butter (manager or the top man) and lost his job.
- Real plum
-
A real plum is a good opportunity.
- Recipe for disaster
- A recipe for disaster is a mixture of people and events that could only possibly result in trouble.
- Rest is gravy
- (USA) If the rest is gravy, it is easy and straightforward once you have reached that stage.
- Rice missionary
- A rice missionary gives food to hungry people as a way of converting them to Christianity.
- Salad days
- Your salad days are an especially happy period of your life.
- Salt in a wound
- If you rub salt in a wound, you make someone feel bad about something that is already a painful experience.
'Pour salt on a wound' is an alternative form of the idiom.
- Salt of the earth
- People who are salt of the earth are decent, dependable and unpretentious.
- Save someone's bacon
- If something saves your bacon, it saves your life or rescues you from a desperate situation. People can also save your bacon.
- Sell like hot cakes
- If a product is selling very well, it is selling like hot cakes.
- Sell like hotcakes
- If something is selling like hotcakes, it is very popular and selling very well.
- Sell your birthright for a mess of pottage
- If a person sells their birthright for a mess of pottage, they accept some trivial financial or other gain, but lose something much more important.
'Sell your soul for a mess of pottage' is an alternative form.
- Separate the wheat from the chaff
- When you separate the wheat from the chaff, you select what is useful or valuable and reject what is useless or worthless.
- Sharp cookie
- Someone who isn't easily deceived or fooled is a sharp cookie.
- She'll be apples
- (AU)
A very popular old Australian saying meaning everything will be all right, often used when there is some doubt.
- Sing for your supper
-
If you have to sing for your supper, you have to work to get the pay or reward you need or want.
- Slower than molasses going uphill in January
- (USA) To move extremely slowly. Molasses drips slowly anyway but add January cold and gravity, dripping uphill would be an impossibility, thereby making the molasses move very slowly indeed!
- Sour grapes
- When someone says something critical or negative because they are jealous, it is a case of sour grapes.
- Sow your wild oats
- If a young man sows his wild oats, he has a period of his life when he does a lot of exciting things and has a lot of sexual relationships. for e.g. He'd spent his twenties sowing his wild oats but felt that it was time to settle down.
- Spice of life
-
The spice of life is something that makes it feel worth living.
- Spill the beans
- If you spill the beans, you reveal a secret or confess to something.
- Square meal
- A square meal is a substantial or filling meal.
- Squeeze blood out of a turnip
- (USA) When people say that you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip, it means that you cannot get something from a person, especially money, that they don't have.
- Stew in your own juices
- If you leave someone to stew in their own juices, you leave them to worry about the consequences of what they have done wrong or badly.
- Sure as eggs is eggs
- These means absolutely certain, and we do say 'is' even though it is grammatically wrong.
- Sweet as a gumdrop
- This means that something or someone is very nice or pretty.
- Take the biscuit
- (UK) If something takes the biscuit, it is the absolute limit.
- Tall drink of water
- Someone who is very tall and slender is a tall drink of water. ('A tall glass of water' is also used.)
- Teach your grandmother to suck eggs
- When people say 'don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs', they mean that people shouldn't try to teach someone who has experience or is an expert in that area.
- That is the way the cookie crumbles
- "That's the way the cookie crumbles" means that things don't always turn out the way we want.
- The apple does not fall far from the tree
-
Offspring grow up to be like their parents.
- There's no such thing as a free lunch
- This idiom means that you don't get things for free, so if something appears to be free, there's a catch and you'll have to pay in some way.
- Thick as mince
- (UK) If someone is as thick as mince, they are very stupid indeed.
- Too many cooks spoil the broth
- This means that where there are too many people trying to do something, they make a mess of it.
- Tough cookie
- A tough cookie is a person who will do everything necessary to achieve what they want.
- Tough nut to crack
- If something is a tough nut to crack, it is difficult to find the answer or solution. When used about a person, it means that it is difficult to get them to do or allow what you want.
'Hard nut to crack' is an alternative.
- Two peas in a pod
- If things or people are like two peas in a pod, they look very similar or are always together.
- Upper crust
- The upper crust are the upper classes and the establishment.
- Upset the apple cart
- If you upset the apple cart, you cause trouble and upset people.
- Wake up and smell the coffee
-
When someone doesn't realise what is really happening or is not paying enough attention to events around them, you can tell them to wake up and smell the coffee.
- Walk on eggshells
- If you have to walk on eggshells when with someone, you have to be very careful because they get angry or offended very easily.
('Walk on eggs' is also used.)
- What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
- This idiom is often used when someone says something irrelevant to the topic being discussed.
- What's cooking?
- When you ask what's cooking it means you want to know what's happening.
- White-bread
- If something is white-bread, it is very ordinary, safe and boring.
- Worth your salt
- Someone who is worth their salt deserves respect.
- You are what you eat
- This is used to emphasise the importance of a good diet as a key to good health.
- You can't have cake and the topping, too
- (USA) This idiom means that you can't have everything the way you want it, especially if your desires are contradictory.
- You can't have your cake and eat it
- This idiom means that you can't have things both ways. For example, you can't have very low taxes and a high standard of state care.
- You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs
- This idiom means that in order to achieve something or make progress, there are often losers in the process.
- You're toast
- If someone tells you that you are toast, you are in a lot of trouble.
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