American Idioms
Terms
undefined, object
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- to eat humble pie
- to admit your error and apologize
- a pig in a poke
- an item you purchase without having seen; a dissapointment
- a flash in the pan
- promising at the start but then dissapointing
- to pour oil on troubled waters
- to make peace, to calm someone down
- the sword of Democles
- any imminent danger (a king seated one of his subjects underneath a sword that was hanging by a hair, in order to teach him the dangers a king faces)
- Pyrrhic victory
- a too costly victory (King Pyrrhus defeated the Romans but his losses were extremely heavy)
- a wet blanket
- one who spoils the fun
- to beard the lion in his den
- to visit and oppose a person on his own grounds
- crocodile tears
- insincere tears (crocodiles were said to cry while eating their prey)
- to carry the day
- to win the approval of the majority
- Skid Row
- disreputable part of town, inhabited by derelicts and people "on the skid"
- to go up in smoke
- to come to no practical result (kindling smokes but it will not light a fire)
- to throw down the gauntlet
- to challenge someone (when the gauntlet, or medieval glove, was thrown down, the challenger was required to pick it up)
- feeling no pain
- drunk
- Hobson's choice
- to have no choice at all (Mr. Hobson owned a livery stable but he did not allow the customers to pick their horses)
- to rule the roost
- to be in charge, to be master (a roost is a perch where domestic birds can sleep)
- stock in trade
- the goods, tools, and other requisites of a profession
- to take down a peg
- to take the conceit out of a braggart (ship's colors used to be raised or lowered by pegs- the higher the colors, the greater the honor)
- to pass the buck
- to evade responsibility (the "buck" is a piece of buckshot passed form one poker player to another to keep track of whose turn it was to deal)
- to lionize a person
- to make a big fuss over someone (the lions at the Tower of London were considered its main attraction)