2014

1. To bring grist to the mill

Something that you can use in order to help you to succeed.

Sentence: As an actor, all experience is grist to the mill.

• To keep one’s fingers crossed

To wish for luck for someone or something,

Sentence: I hope you win the race Saturday. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you.

• With one’s tongue in one’s cheek

If you say something tongue in cheek, what you have said is a joke, although it might seem to be serious.

Sentence: And we all know what a passionate love life I have!’ he said, tongue in cheek.

• A storm in the teacup

A situation where people get very angry or worried about something that is not important. Sentence: I think it’s all a storm in a teacup – there’s probably no danger to public health at all.

• To talk through one’s hat

To be talking about a subject as if you know a lot about it when in fact you know very little.

Sentence: The man’s talking through his hat. He doesn’t know the first thing about banking.

• Hum and hew

To pause a lot and avoid saying something directly.

Sentence: When asked what kind of woman he was looking for, he hemmed and hawed and finally admitted he was looking for a party girl.

• Let the grass grow under one’s feet

To waste time by delaying doing something.

Sentence: We can’t let the grass grow under our feet – we’ve really got to get going with this project.

• Penny wise and pound foolish

Unwise because doing something small now would prevent much more trouble later.

Sentence: Education budget cuts are penny wise and pound foolish – public education is an investment in our future.

2013

1. The milk of human kidneys

Natural kindness and sympathy shown to others.

Sentence: Mary is completely hard and selfish—she doesn’t have the milk of human kindness in her.

• A rule of thumb

A way of calculating something which is not exact but which will help you to be correct enough.

Sentence: A good rule of thumb is to cook two handfuls of rice per person.

• Out and out

Complete; thoroughgoing

Sentence: He is an out-and-out capitalist.

• To wash ones’s dirty lines in public.

To discuss private or embarrassing matters in public, especially when quarreling.

Sentence: They are arguing again. Why must they always air their dirty linen in public?

• To Pay through the nose

To pay too much for something.

Sentence: If you bring a car into the city, you have to pay through the nose for parking it.

• To lose face

To lose status; to become less respectable.

Sentence: John is more afraid of losing face than losing money.

2012

1. Wool Gathering

To engage in fanciful daydreaming.

• Under the harrow

Subjected to actual torture with a toothed instrument, or to great affliction or oppression.

• Cold comfort

No comfort or consolation at all.

Sentence: She knows there are others worse off than her, but that’s cold comfort.

• A gold digger

A woman who has relationships with rich men so that they will give her money.

Sentence: I’m not saying she’s a gold digger, but how come all her boyfriends have been rich?

• To Walk with God

To live in obedience to his commands, and have communion with him.

• On the thin ice

In an uncertain condition.

Sentence: My brother was already on thin ice with the coach when he injured his knee.

• A queer fish

A strange person.

Sentence: I knew his father and he was a queer fish too.

• Unearthly hour

Not of this earth; preternatural; supernatural.