Important English Idioms with Meanings and Examples

 Important English Idioms with Meanings and Examples

1.    Be a chicken

Meaning: Be a coward.

Example: Don't be a chicken. Talk to her about your love for her

2.    A little bird told me

Meaning: Said when you don't want reveal the source of your information.

3.    As gentle as a lamb

Meaning: Said about kind , innocent, mild-mannered people.

Example: She is as gentle as a lamb. That's why everybody likes her.

4.    Back the wrong horse

Meaning : to support someone or something that later cannot be successful.

Example: Don't back the wrong horse! You know he cannot win the elections.

5.    Be a cold fish

Meaning: be a person who is distant and unfeeling

Example: He rarely talks to his colleagues. He's a cold fish.

6.    Be like a fish out of water

Meaning: to feel uncomfortable in a situation 

Example: After her divorce, she was like a fish out of water

7.    Beat a dead horse

Meaning: (Also flog a dead horse.) To persist or continue far beyond any purpose, interest or reason.

Example: If you continue talking about something that cannot be changed, you are beating a dead horse.

8.    Call off the dogs

Meaning: said when you want someone to stop criticizing you

Example: Please, call off the dogs. I apologize for what I have done.

9.    Big fish in a small pond

Meaning: One who has achieved a high rank or is highly esteemed, but only in a small, relatively unimportant, or little known location or organization.

Example: Dr. Jones could get a professorship at an Ivy League university, but he enjoys being a big fish in a small pond too much to ever leave Hannover College.

10.  Cash cow

Meaning: someone or something which is a dependable source of appreciable amounts of money; a moneymaker.

Example:  The type writers production which had been their cash cow for so many years witnessed a collapse of sales.