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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).
An idiom is a phrase or expression that usually presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase. Some phrases which become figurative idioms, however, do retain the phrase's literal meaning. Categorized as formulaic language, an idiom's figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning. [1]
Every dog has his day [a] Every Jack has his Jill [a] Every little bit helps [a] Every man for himself (and the Devil take the hindmost) [a] Every man has his price [a] Every picture tells a story [a] Every stick has two ends [a] Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die [a] Everyone has their price.
An idiom dictionary may be a traditional book or expressed in another medium such as a database within software for machine translation.Examples of the genre include Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which explains traditional allusions and proverbs, and Fowler's Modern English Usage, which was conceived as an idiom dictionary following the completion of the Concise Oxford English ...
Another idiom of improbability is 畑に蛤 (Hata ni hamaguri) which means "finding clams in a field". Latin – ad kalendas graecas ("to the Greek Kalends") signified indefinite postponement, since the Greek calendar had no Calends period; also cum mula peperit = "when a mule foaled".
The following is a list of phrases from sports that have become idioms (slang or otherwise) in English. They have evolved usages and meanings independent of sports and are often used by those with little knowledge of these games. The sport from which each phrase originates has been included immediately after the phrase.
Back-seat driver. Barking up the wrong tree. Glossary of English-language idioms derived from baseball. Bed of roses. Belling the Cat. Best friends forever. Between Scylla and Charybdis. Bill matter. Birds of a feather flock together.
T. Tantamount to election. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Throw under the bus. Tinkerbell effect.