Remember 146 English Idioms: From Break the Ice to Go Dutch
Learn 146 English idioms with real flashcards: meaning families, the 6 duplicates to suspend, a card to fix and how to study idioms by meaning, not alphabet.
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Most idiom lists fail for the same reason: 146 random phrases with no structure. The English Idioms & Expressions deck (code BL3322) has that problem too. It is also sitting on a better structure, and it only takes ten minutes to find it.
Study this deck: English Idioms & Expressions
1 / 10Break the ice
Tap the card for the answer · swipe right if you knew it, left if not
What's inside
The deck is really three lists stitched together:
- Cards 1–43: the classics (break the ice, a piece of cake, spill the beans, when pigs fly).
- Cards 44–92: a second A→Y run (a dime a dozen, cold feet, make ends meet, walk on eggshells).
- Cards 93–146: a third alphabetical list that stops at G (all ears, bury the hatchet, clear as mud, fit as a fiddle, go Dutch). There is nothing from H to Z.
Sample cards
| Idiom | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Beat around the bush | To avoid talking directly about something |
| Bite off more than you can chew | To take on more than you can handle |
| Make ends meet | To have just enough money to pay for necessities |
| Read between the lines | To understand the hidden meaning |
| Steal someone's thunder | To take credit for someone else's achievement |
| By the skin of your teeth | Just barely, narrowly |
| Cut the mustard | To meet expectations or standards |
| Go Dutch | Each person pays for themselves |
Suspend the repeats
Because the three lists overlap, six idioms appear twice: cost an arm and a leg (5/98), under the weather (9/58), eggs in one basket (33/56), grain of salt (36/84), rock and a hard place (51/104) and elephant in the room (85/132). Keep the fuller form of each and suspend the other, which leaves 140 real cards.
Study by meaning, not by letter
The deck is ordered alphabetically, which is the worst order for recall. Shuffle it, then group the cards into meaning families so that near-synonyms get tested against each other:
- Secrets: let the cat out of the bag, spill the beans
- Very happy: on cloud nine, over the moon
- Expensive / cheap: an arm and a leg, break the bank vs for a song, a dime a dozen
- Start over: back to square one, back to the drawing board
- Make it worse: add insult to injury (a new humiliation on top of a loss) vs add fuel to the fire (an argument heats up)
- Die: kick the bucket, bite the dust, dead as a doornail. Bite the dust can also mean simply "fail".
One card to fix
Card 6 defines hit the nail on the head as describing "exactly what is causing a situation". In everyday use, it means saying something exactly right. Rewrite the back with an example: "You've hit the nail on the head — that's the real problem."
Also add a register tag to each card. Kick the bucket and go bananas are casual. At the end of the day and on the same page are fine in a meeting.
Next step
Idioms and phrasal verbs are the two halves of natural spoken English. Pair this deck with Master 199 English Phrasal Verbs.
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