English Idioms!!

The Pot Calling The Kettle Black
to say something about someone else which is actually true of you yourself.

An About Face

turn around and face the opposite direction.

pay through the nose

to pay too much for something.
If you want a decent wine in a restaurant, you have to pay through the nose for it.

Clear blue water
distance between the ideologies of two political parties.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth

Don’t loose an opportunity by being to critical about it

Between a rock and a hard place

In difficulty, faced with a choice between two unsatisfactory options.

Barking up the wrong tree

Making a mistake or a false assumption in something you are trying to achieve.

This idiom it from hunting when dogs were used to find game. When a dog found its quarry in a tree it would stop and begin to bark to alert the hunters. The allusion is to hunting dogs barking at the bottom of trees where they mistakenly think their quarry is hiding.

“A big fish in a small pond” and “A small fish in a big pond” are opposite idioms

When you feel small in comparison with your environment (usually business) you are a small fish in a big pond and when you feel large in comparison with your environment (usually business) you are a big fish in a small pond.
“Bang for the buck” means you get a lot for a little.. Example: I got to go to 3 shows for a dollar that is a lot of bang for the buck.

Dog and pony show was a colloquial term used in the United States in the late-19th and early-20th centuries to refer to small traveling circuses that toured through small towns and rural areas. The name derives from the typical use of performing dogs and ponies as the main attractions of the events.

full of hot air
full of bragging/false talk. something tht isnt sincere or has no practical results.
“the promises he had made were just so full of hot air.”

a horse of a different color,
Another matter entirely, something else.
what you expect it come up with totally different result.

bring to heel
force someone to obey you.

“Any Port In A Storm”

This means that in an emergency any solution will do, even one that would normally be unacceptable.

to burn one’s fingers = after doing something foolish you suffer the unpleasant results of it.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

This idiom means that when something is needed (necessary) to be done people figure out a way (invent a way) to do it.

You can’t get blood out of a stone!
An inanimate object cannot do things which an animate one can.

paper over the cracks
:to hide ones fault

Let your hair down
Behave in a free or uninhibited manner

Call it a night : To stop what one has been doing, for the remainder of the night.

A
A rising tide lifts all boats
This idiom, coined by John F Kennedy, describes the idea that when an economy is performing well, all people will benefit from it.

B
Back to square one
If you are back to square one, you have to start from the beginning again.

C
Carrot and stick
If someone offers a carrot and stick, they offer an incentive to do something combined with the threat of punishment.

Devil’s Advocate
The word “Devil’s Advocate” actually comes from Canon Law. In the Vatican, when arguments are being presented to have a person declared a saint, the Church appoints an official to find flaws in this evidence.

This official is called the “Devil’s Advocate” and has come to mean a person who espouses a cause just for the sake of argument.

Never darken my door again

“Never darken my door again” is a way of telling someone never to visit you again.

pull the plug

to stop/terminate something
e.g. the funding agency has threatened to pull the plug on further financial support.

X marks the spot

There was a time, when someone who had something of great value would often bury their treasure so that no one could find it and take it away. Of course, there was always the risk that one might forget where their treasure was buried, so to make sure that they would remember where it was, they would often make a map. Usually they would mark the spot where the treasure was with an “X”. That is where we get the expression, “X marks the spot.”

It is also said when one finds something or a clue to finding something one’s been looking for.

Apples and Oranges

if two people or things are apples and oranges, they are completely different.

Handwriting like chicken scratch

If your handwriting is very hard to read, it is like chicken scratch.

Spent force is something that has been depleted, and is now obsolete.
So a “Spent Force of time” is like a “waste of time”.

Catch-22 is a term coined by Joseph Heller in his novel Catch-22, describing a paradox in a law, regulation or practice in which one is a victim regardless of the choice one makes.

In probability theory, it refers a situation similar to Heads I win, tails you lose. A familiar example of this circumstance occurs in the context of job searching. In moving from school to a career, one may encounter a Catch-22.

Example of use:
I am in a Catch-22 situation. I cannot get a job without work experience, but I cannot gain experience without a job.

almighty dollar
– money when it is viewed as more important than anything else
The man spent most of his life chasing the almighty dollar.

ante up
– to pay money, to produce a necessary amount of money
I had to ante up a lot of money to get my car fixed.

as phony as a three-dollar bill
– phony, not genuine
The man who was asking for donations for the charity was as phony as a three-dollar bill.

as poor as a church mouse
– very poor
The young mother is as poor as a church mouse and she has little money to feed her family.

as sound as a dollar
– very secure and dependable
The company president believes that his business is as sound as a dollar.

at a premium
– at a higher price than usual because of something special
The tickets for the final basketball game were selling at a premium.

at all costs
– at any expense of time/effort/money
We plan to send our child to a good school at all costs.

back on one`s feet
– to return to good financial health
My sister is back on her feet after losing her job last year.

balance the books/accounts
– to make sure that all money is accounted for by using generally accepted accounting methods
The small business owner works very hard to balance the books of her company.

below par
– lower than average, below normal, less than the face value of a bond/stock/currency
The government bonds were selling at a price that was below par.

bet one`s bottom dollar
– to bet all that one has on something because you are sure that you will win
I would bet my bottom dollar that the accounting manager will be late again today.

bet on the wrong horse
– to base one`s plans on a wrong guess about the results of something
The businessman is betting on the wrong horse if he continues to support the other candidate for mayor.