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.)
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.)
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.
Someone who fishes in troubled waters tries to takes advantage of a shaky or unstable situation. The extremists were fishing in troubled waters during the political uncertainty in the country.
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.
(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.
If something is like watching sausages getting made, unpleasant truths about it emerge that make it much less appealing. The idea is that if people watched sausages getting made, they would probably be less fond of them.
If you don't give a fig about something, you don't care about it at all, especially used to express how little one cares about another's opinions or actions.
(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.)
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.)
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.
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.
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.
(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!
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.
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
