2000
(i) Blow one’s top / blow one’s stack
Fly into a rage; lose one’s composure
If she calls about this one more time I’m going to blow my top. Warren is generally very easy-going, but today he blew his stack.
The top here has been likened to the top of an erupting volcano; the stack alludes to a smokestack.
Go crazy; become insane
When she regains consciousness, she just may blow her top.
(ii) A cock-and-bull story
A fanciful and unbelievable tale
(iii) Find one’s feet
To grow in confidence in a new situation as one gains experience.
If you ask for help when you need it, you will soon find your feet.
(iv) Call it a night
To go to bed to sleep
(v) The tip of the iceberg
The tip of the iceberg is the part of a problem that can be seen, with far more serious problems lying underneath
(vi) Below par / under par
Not up to the average, normal, or desired standard
I am feeling below par today, but I’m sure I’ll recover by tomorrow.
This term employs par in the sense of “an average amount or quality,” a usage dating from the late 1700s.
(vii) From pillar to post
If something is going from pillar to post, it is moving around in a meaningless way, from one disaster to another.
(viii) Hang up/ hang up on
Suspend on a hook or hanger, as in Let me hang up your coat for you. [c. 1300] Replace a telephone receiver in its cradle; end a phone conversation
She hung up the phone
He hung up on her. [Early 1900s]
Delay or hinder; also, become halted or snagged Budget problems hung up the project for months. Traffic was hung up for miles. [Second half of 1800s]
Have or cause to have emotional difficulties
Being robbed at gunpoint can hang one up for years to come. [Slang; early 1900s]
Obsessed with
For years the FBI was hung up on Communist spies. [First half of 1900s]
(IX) hang up one’s sword or gloves or fiddle
Quit, retire
He’s hanging up his sword next year and moving to Florida.
The noun in these expressions refers to the profession one is leaving—sword for the military, gloves for boxing, and fiddle for music—but they all are used quite loosely as well, as in the example.
(X) hang up one’s hat
Settle somewhere, reside
“Eight hundred a year, and as nice a house as any gentleman could wish to hang up his hat in” (Anthony Trollope, The Warden, 1855).
(ix) Turn some one on
To create feeling of excitement, interest, lust, pleasure etc
(ix) Turn some one off
To create feelings of dislike, repulsion, disgust etc
(x) By and by
After a while, soon
She’ll be along by and by.
The expression probably relies on the meaning of by as a succession of quantities (as in “two by two”).
This adverbial phrase came to be used as a noun, denoting either procrastination or the future. William Camden so used it for the former (Remains, 1605):
“Two anons and a by and by is an hour and a half.”
And W.S. Gilbert used it in the latter sense when Lady Jane sings plaintively that little will be left of her “in the coming by and by,” that is, as she grows old (Patience, 1881). [Early 1500s]
1999
(a) A jaundiced eye
The phrase “Jaundiced eye” means to looks at something with a prejudiced view, usually in a rather negative or critical manner.
(b) A left-handed compliment / backhanded compliment
An insult in the guise of an expression of praise
She said she liked my hair, but it turned out to be a left-handed compliment when she asked how long I’d been dyeing it.
This expression uses left-handed in the sense of “questionable or doubtful,” a usage dating from about 1600.
(c) The ruling passion
An interest or concern that occupies a large part of someone’s time and effort
(d) Tower of strength
Someone who can be relied on to provide support and comfort.
(e) Steal a march on someone
To get ahead of, especially by quiet enterprise.
(f) In one’s bones
Have an intuition or hunch about something
I’m sure he’ll succeed—I can feel it in my bones.
This expression alludes to the age-old notion that persons with a healed broken bone or with arthritis experience bone pain before rain, due to a drop in barometric pressure, and therefore can predict a weather change.
(g) Hang in the balance
Be in a precarious condition or in a state of suspense
The doctor said her life was hanging in the balance.
This expression alludes to the suspended balance scale where an object is placed in one pan and weights are added one by one to the other pan until the two are balanced.
(h) Fly in the ointment
A drawback or detrimental factor
The new library is wonderful but there’s a fly in the ointment. Their catalog isn’t complete yet.
This term probably alludes to a biblical proverb (Ecclesiastes 10:1):
“Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour.”
(i) Close-fisted
Tightfisted; stingy or unwilling to part with money
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