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An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
The OED records "break through" used in a military sense from the trench warfare times of 1915, when the Observer used the phrase in a headline. [2] The Online Etymology Dictionary dates the metaphoric use of "breakthrough" - meaning "abrupt solution or progress" - from the 1930s, [3] shortly after Joseph Stalin popularized the Russian equivalent (Russian: перелом, romanized: perelom ...
Definition Context Notes At peace [1] Dead Euphemistic: At rest [1] Dead Polite: Augered in Died via aircraft crash Slang As documented in The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe: Belly up [1] Dead Informal The orientation of fish when dead Beyond the grave [1] After death Neutral In reference to communication with the dead Beyond the veil [2]
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A breaking pitch, usually a slider, curveball, or cut fastball that, due to its lateral motion, passes through a small part of the strike zone on the outside edge of the plate after seeming as if it would miss the plate entirely. It may not cross the front of the plate but only the back and thus have come in through the "back door".
The original meaning was similar to "the game is afoot", but its modern meaning, like that of the phrase "crossing the Rubicon", denotes passing the point of no return on a momentous decision and entering into a risky endeavor where the outcome is left to chance. alenda lux ubi orta libertas: Let light be nourished where liberty has arisen
The term bonk for fatigue is presumably derived from the original meaning "to hit", and dates back at least half a century. Its earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is a 1952 article in the Daily Mail. [8] The term is used colloquially as a noun ("hitting the bonk") and as a verb ("to bonk halfway through the race").
A scoop may be a new story, or a new aspect to an existing or breaking news story. It may be unexpected, surprising, formerly secret, and may come from an exclusive source . Events witnessed by many people generally cannot become scoops, (e.g., a natural disaster, or the announcement at a press conference ).