100 English Idioms that will make you sound more natural
Hello everybody! Do you want to boost your English fluency and sound more natural? Then, learn these 100 English idioms that will you make sound closer to the language native speakers use.
A typical ESL student is both fascinated and frustrated by idioms; they give you fluency but are very hard to use accurately because:
Learn these English idioms and put them into practice in your everyday life!
| Idiom | Meaning |
| Hard to swallow | Difficult to believe |
| Digging around | Looking for |
| He’s a really bright spark | He’s an intelligent person |
| He’s kicked the bucket | He’s died |
| She’s hitting the books | She’s studying hard |
| Break a leg! | Good luck! |
| Set out on a new career | Start a new career |
| Saunter through life | Live in a relaxed way |
| Follow in someone’s footsteps | Do something the way another person did it before |
| One step at a time | Do something slowly and carefully |
| Career path | The sequence of jobs someone takes that create their career |
| Milestones | Important events in a person’s life or career |
| Dead end job | A job that offers no opportunity for advancement |
| To be at a crossroads | When someone is at a point in life where their decisions will have long term consequences |
| He’s on the straight and narrow | He’s living in a morally proper way |
| To walk someone through something | To show someone how to do something |
| We need to come up with a road map | We need to make a plan |
| I wouldn’t go down that road if I were you! | I wouldn’t do that if I were you! |
| Don’t run before you can walk | Don’t try to do something difficult before mastering the basics |
| Inching forward | When progress on something is being made in small increments |
| To move at a snail’s pace | To move slowly |
| To get good mileage out of something | To get a lot of benefits from something |
| To have your whole life in front of you | To be young and have a lot of years to live |
| To get on with your life | To make progress in life goals after a difficulty |
| To tread carefully | To behave or speak carefully to avoid offending or causing problems with someone or something |
| To be a minefield | When something presents many possible dangers |
| We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it | To wait to worry about one problem at a time |
| Information superhighway | The internet |
| Time is money | Time is a valuable resource |
| A tasty (or juicy) bit of gossip | Very interesting or sensational gossip |
| To devour someone or something | To consume something very quickly |
| To add a pinch of salt to something | To acknowledge that someone exaggerates |
| To chew something over | To think about something before making a decision |
| To not swallow something | To not accept something as fact |
| To bite off more than you can chew | When someone makes a commitment that they cannot keep |
| To eat your wods | When someone has to admit they were wrong |
| A warm welcome | A friendly welcome |
| The cold shoulder | An unfriendly welcome |
| When things heat up between people | When a relationship becomes romantic |
| To be cold-hearted | To be dispassionate or uncaring |
| A 24-hour hotline | A phone line that is always active |
| A very frosty reception | To receive a greeting that makes someone feel unwelcome |
| The Cold War | War without active fighting between nations |
| A warm smile and the warm handshake | A welcoming smile and handshake |
| Cold callers | People who call phones, usually for sales, who don’t have previous contact with the person they’re calling |
| We took the temperature of the group | Checked the overall opinion of a person or group of people about something |
| Most people were quite warm about the idea | People have a positive reaction to the idea |
| You’ll reap the rewards later | To collect the benefits of your work |
| To prune out | To clear, clean or groom something |
| Separate the wheat from the chaff | Separate what is useful or valuable from what is worthless |
| Rooted in | Based on something or connected to a source/cause |
| To cutback something | To reduce something, usually related to the amount of money spent |
| To dig deep | To use a lot of your physical, mental or financial resources to achieve something |
| Great growth | A positive change in the production of goods or services |
| Root and branch | Completely/utter |
| Seed money | Money that is used to start a small business or other activity |
| Bright shoot | Start something new, a new chapter |
| Plough its own furrow | To follow a plan or course of action independently |
| Green fingers | Have an ability to make plants grow, to be good at gardening |
| Build/make a good case | To argue that something is the best thing to do, to explain and give reasons why something should be done |
| A fabrication | To tell lies about something, completely made-up/invented |
| To be on solid ground | To be confident about the topic you are dealing with, or because you are in a safe situation |
| Build on | To use something as a base or foundation to develop something else |
| Shattered | To break something into a smaller form or into many pieces |
| Undermine your position | Behave in a way that makes you less likely to succeed |
| Demolish your arguments | To break down someone’s argument to an extent that it is no longer accurate or correct |
| Constructive criticism | Criticism that is useful because they can help improve something |
| Grounds for dismissal | A reason for you to be dismissed from your job, often due to your (negative) behavior |
| Completely groundless | Not based on any good reason |
| Grounded in fact | Something that is based on facts |
| Come to light | To be revealed |
| Unearthed | To find something that was lost or forgotten |
| A mine of information/gossip/data | Someone or something that can provide you with a lot of information etc. |
| Get to the bottom of | Find an explanation, often to a mystery |
| Digging into | To methodically reveal information |
| To bury the memory | To try to hide something, such as a memory, the truth etc. |
| Emerge | Something that is brought to attention |
| Out in the open | In public view or knowledge, everybody knows |
| Underground scene | An alternative culture, different from the mainstream of society and culture |
| Transparency | Something that can be seen by everyone/the public |
| Crystal clear | Perfectly easy to understand |
| Put your head in the sand | To ignore or hide from the obvious signs of danger |
| Bright spark | Someone that is highly intelligent |
| Enlightenment | To understand something completely |
| Throw light on something | To reveal something about someone/something, to clarify something |
| Dull | Something that lacks imagination, boring |
| Brilliant | Shining brightly, stands out, illustrious |
| In the dark | A state of ignorance, to not have knowledge about something |
| Dim-witted | Something/someone that thinks slowly, lacks intelligence |
| Dark ages | When something was not understood, a time when knowledge was limited |
| Illuminating | To make something more understandable |
| Right-wing | A part of a political group that consists of people who support conservative or traditional ideas |
| Look down upon | To view someone or something as unworthy |
| Side of the fence | Refers to either side of opposing views or ideas |
| Political landscape | The current state of things and how they are looking in the future |
| Look at life | How you observe things that happen, your opinion on daily matters |
| Behind you all the way | To fully support someone’s actions |
| Point of view | An opinion on something |
| Better perspective | A clearer view of something, a more thorough understanding of a situation |
| Take someone’s side | To support one person’s side of an argument |
| Where I stand | Your opinion, point of view |
| Look up to | To respect someone as a role model |
| Moral high ground | The status of being respected, a position of being ‘more’ moral than others |
| Sitting on the fence | Undecided on a decision, avoid making a decision on something |
Do you know any other idioms that you frequently hear in your English interactions? Share with us!… and keep on task learning more collocations in context or 25 more relationship collocations in context!
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