Ever used the phrases "Under the weather" "Shoot the breeze" "Off one's rocker"? Then you spoke an idiom.
Idioms are words, phrases, or expressions that are
either grammatically unusual, as in, “Long
time, no see!”, or their meaning cannot be taken
literally, as in, “It's raining cats and dogs!”
This expression does not mean that cats and dogs
are falling from the sky, but it is a metaphorical
expression (word picture) that means that it is
raining very heavily. In other words, idioms don't mean exactly what the words
say. They have, however, hidden meaning. When used in everyday
language, they have a meaning other than the basic one you would find in the
dictionary. Every language has its own
idioms.
There are estimated to be at least 25,000
idiomatic expressions in the English language. Some idioms, in contrast, are transparent. For
example, 'lay one's cards on the table' means to reveal previously unknown
intentions, or to reveal a secret.“She is pulling my leg” has at least two meanings: a literal meaning
and a figurative meaning. Pulling
someone's leg means either that you literally grab their leg and yank it, or
figuratively someone is trying to convince you of a tall tale.
Proverbs
such as these usually have figurative meaning. When one says "The devil is in the
details", one is not expressing a belief in demons, but rather one means
that things may look good on the surface, but upon scrutiny, problems are
revealed.
Take the idiom “to kick the bucket.” An English speaker would understand the phrase
"kick the bucket" to mean "to die" – as well as to actually
kick a bucket. But the same phrase in other languages sometimes doesn’t portray
the same connotation. Idioms from other languages that are analogous to "kick
the bucket" in English are Danish: at
stille træskoene 'to take off the clogs', Italian: tirare le cuoia 'to pull the skins' or French: manger des pissenlits par la racine 'to eat dandelions by the root'.
Somehow they don’t convey quite the same message.
You might be interested in consulting special
idiom dictionaries. Here are some helpful online idiom
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