100 English Idioms that will make you sound more natural

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:

They may change meaning if you forget or change a single word.

You must use them in the right context – don’t say ‘he’s kicked the bucket’ (died) at a funeral!

You can’t translate them into, or from, another language. There is no literal translation.

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!