Idioms

Proverbs, idioms, and phrases are all an integral part of everyday English. We find them regularly in both written and spoken English. Idioms need not make sense literally every time we use it. Hence, it is important to be familiar with how to use idioms in our day to day life. It may seem like it is a tough process, but learning idioms are really fun. It is even funnier when you try to translate the English idioms into your own language.

The usage of common idioms and expressions will make you sound like an expert or a native speaker, so it’s a wonderful idea if one could master these idioms and expressions. Some of the most commonly used idioms are given in a table below. You can start off by learning the very common idioms as they appear regularly in English movies and sitcoms. Once you have mastered those, you can move on to the rest of the idioms  None of the idioms given here are old fashioned, so you can be confident using any of them with native English speakers from all over the world.

 

Idioms	Meaning	Usage
A blessing in disguise	a good thing that seemed bad at first	as part of a sentence
A dime a dozen	Something common	as part of a sentence
Beat around the bush	Avoid saying what you mean, usually because it is uncomfortable	as part of a sentence
Better late than never	Better to arrive late than not to come at all	by itself
Bite the bullet	To get something over with because it is inevitable	as part of a sentence
Break a leg	Good luck	by itself
Call it a day	Stop working on something	as part of a sentence
Cut somebody some slack	Don’t be so critical	as part of a sentence
Cutting corners	Doing something poorly in order to save time or money	as part of a sentence
Easy does it	Slow down	by itself
Get out of hand	Get out of control	as part of a sentence
Get something out of your system	Do the thing you’ve been wanting to do so you can move on	as part of a sentence
Get your act together	Work better or leave	by itself
Give someone the benefit of the doubt	Trust what someone says	as part of a sentence
Go back to the drawing board	Start over	as part of a sentence
Hang in there	Don’t give up	by itself
Hit the sack	Go to sleep	as part of a sentence
It’s not rocket science	It’s not complicated	by itself
Let someone off the hook	To not hold someone responsible for something	as part of a sentence
Make a long story short	Tell something briefly	as part of a sentence
Miss the boat	It’s too late	as part of a sentence
No pain, no gain	You have to work for what you want	by itself
On the ball	Doing a good job	as part of a sentence
Pull someone’s leg	To joke with someone	as part of a sentence
Pull yourself together	Calm down	by itself