ICON+

Do you believe that “actions speak louder than words”? Have you “made a bundle” in smart investments and no longer need to worry about money matters? Are you likely to “beat around the bush” rather than answer difficult questions directly? Do you get “carried away” when you are shopping and spend many more hours than necessary hunting for the perfect necklace to go with your denim jacket?

If you understood the meaning of the questions above, you’re well on your way to learning idioms and to sounding more native an English speaker. At ICON+ Education Centre, we expose our TOEFL prep students to idioms to help them sound more fluent and more capable of manipulating the English language – and therefore more likely to achieve high scores.

But what exactly are idioms, anyways? Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines an idiom as “the language peculiar to a people or to a district, community, or class.” It is “an expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either grammatically or in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements.”

Basically, an idiom is a phrase used commonly in a specific community. In many cases, an idiom means something very different from what it would signify if it were taken literally. For example, if an Englishwoman says her rent is “cheap as chips”, then you know that she is paying minimum moolah (money) for her flat. As the TOEFL test is a North American ESL test, it will help you to understand and to be able to accurately and fluently apply some idioms commonly used in the USA and Canada.

Here are some common idioms in North America for you to learn:

A blessing in disguise

Definition: An event or experience that seemed negative at the time can, in hindsight, have produced very positive effects.

- Being dumped by his ex-girlfriend turned out to be a blessing in disguise; Robert is now engaged to the sweetest, most gentle girl in the city!

A taste of your own medicine

Definition: To experience for oneself the treatment (usually negative) he or she has given to others

- Judge Owens got a taste of his own medicine when he was convicted of blackmail and sentenced to 10 years in the state prison.

To lose one’s touch

Definition: To lose a special talent

- When my meringues came out from the oven burnt to a crisp, I feared I had lost my touch – I’ve always been known for my excellent home baking.

Don’t judge a book by its cover

Definition: Exterior looks and first impressions can be deceiving, and we should get to know more about something or somebody before making assumptions.

- Upon coming face to face with the heavily made-up and scantily dressed super model, I immediately assumed that she must be as witchy as she was beautiful. When I later learned that she regularly contributed a quarter of her annual income to The Society for Endangered Species, I realized I had judged a book by its cover.

 To bite off more than one can chew

Definition: To take on more than one is capable of handling

- Ruth bit off more than she could chew when she accepted two jobs while finishing her graduate studies and writing her thesis.