Idioms and Phrases
20 August 2008M
Make my day - Meaning: Carry on with what you are doing - it will give me an excuse to behave badly.
A Mickey Finn - Meaning: A sedative (or sometimes in the US a purgative) drug surreptitiously slipped into someone’s drink.
Men in suits - Meaning: Businessmen/bureaucrats/soldiers and the like who follow convention and the company line. Also called just ’suits’.
Milk of human kindness - Meaning: Care and compassion for others.
Makes your hair stand on end - Meaning: Something frightening.
Morning person - Meaning: Someone who functions better in the morning, as compared to later in the day.
Moveable feast - Meaning: A feast day that falls on the same day of the week each year but which has a date which varies.
N
Nail your colours to the mast - Meaning: To display one’s opinions and beliefs. Also used to mean to show one’s intention to hold on to those beliefs until the end.
Name and shame - Meaning: The publication of the identity of a person or group that is culpable in some anti-social act in order to shame them into remorse.
No man is an island - Meaning: Human beings do not thrive when isolated from others. Donne was a Christian but this concept is shared by other religions, principally Buddhism.
Not worth the candle - Meaning: Worthless.
Nitty-gritty - Meaning: The heart of the matter; the basic essentials; the harsh realities.
Not playing with a full deck - Meaning: Stupid.
To the nth degree - Meaning: To the utmost degree; without limit.
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