Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
When the going gets tough, the tough get going; When the oak is before the ash, then you will only get a splash; when the ash is before the oak, then you may expect a soak; When you have seen one, you have seen them all; What is learnt in the cradle lasts to the tombs; What the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over
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).
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".
However it also has a more literal meaning and in certain circumstances is the preferred idiom to use. "Hold your horses" literally means to keep your horse(s) still, not to be confused with holding them in a stable. Someone is to slow down when going too fast, [1] or to wait a moment, or to be more careful, [2] or to be patient before acting.
Jack Robinson is a name present in two common figures of speech. When referring to Jack Robinson, it is used to represent quickness. In contrast, the phrase "(A)round Jack Robinson's barn" has the opposite connotation, implying slowness, as it is often used to refer to circumlocution, circumvention, or doing things in roundabout or unnecessarily complicated ways.
They go too fast. [3] Anthony Oettinger gives "fruit flies like bananas" as contrasted with "time flies like an arrow" as an example of the difficulty of handling ambiguous syntactic structures as early as 1963, [4] although his formal publications with Susumu Kuno do not use that example. [5] This is quoted by later authors. [6]
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
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 ...