100 Common Idioms for Competitive Exams

100 Common Idioms for Competitive Exams are the most frequently used idioms in the questions. Idioms are an important part of English in all competitive exams. An idiom is a group of words with a different meaning than individual words. Here is the list of 100 Common Idioms for Competitive Exams with their meaning.

100 Common Idioms for Competitive Exams

A Hot Potato	Difficult or dangerous to deal with
A penny for your thoughts	Way of asking what someone is thinking.
Achilles’ heel	A fatal weakness
Actions speak louder than words	What you do is more significant than what you say
Add insult to injury	To make a bad situation worse
An arm and a leg	A lot of money
An armchair job	A job with high income and high comfort
An iron will	Strong willpower
An old flame	A lover from the past, A person with a romantic relationship from the past.
An old head on young shoulders	A young person having more wisdom and experience for his age.
An olive branch	Sign of peace
Apple of discord	A cause of dispute or quarrel
Apple of one’s eye	Very dear or lovable
At sixes and sevens	Disorder, Chaotic, unorganized
At the drop of a hat	Immediately, instantly
Back to the drawing board	Start something all over again.
Ball is in your court	It is up to you to take the next step
Barking up the wrong tree	Looking in the wrong place
Be glad to see the back of	Be glad to see someone leave
Beat around the bush	Not speaking directly about the issue
Best of both the worlds	Situation wherein one can enjoy two different opportunities
Best thing since sliced bread	an excellent new invention
Bite off more than you can chew	To take on a task that is way too big
Blessing in disguise	Something good that isn’t recognized at first
Blow one’s own trumpet	Self-praise, praising oneself
Bolt from the blue	A sudden and unexpected trouble
Bone of contention	Cause or reason of dispute
Broad daylight	In an open area where things can not be hidden
Burn the candles at both ends	Useless expenses or wasting money
Burn the midnight oil	To stay up working, especially studying, late at night
Bury the hatchet	End of enmity, End of hostility, end of animosity
By leaps and bounds	Rapid progress or growth
Castles in the air	Day-dreaming, imagination
Caught between two stools	When someone finds it difficult to choose between two alternatives
Clip one’s wings	To weaken the strength of someone
Count chickens before they are hatched	To anticipate profit beforehand
Crocodile’s tear	Fake display of grief or faking the sadness
Cross one’s mind	Suddenly coming into mind
Cross that bridge when you come to it	Deal with a problem if and when it becomes necessary
Cry over spilled milk	To be unhappy about something that cannot be undone
Curiosity killed the cat	Being too curious can get you into trouble
Cut corners	To take shortcuts
Cut the mustard	To succeed
Devil’s advocate	To present a counterargument
Dig one’s own grave	Doing something that harms oneself
Don’t count your chickens before the eggs have hatched	Don’t make plans for something that might not happen
Don’t give up the day job	Not being very good at something
Don’t judge a book by its cover	Don’t judge something primarily by its appearance
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket	Don’t focus all of your attention on one thing or one area
Double-edged sword	Something that harms oneself as well as the others
Down in the dumps	Unhappy, depressed
Draconian law	Extremely severe and strict law
Drastic times call for drastic measures	When you’re extremely desperate you need to take drastic actions
Easy money	Bribe, black money
Eat one’s words	Admitting that the prediction was wrong
Elvis has left the building	The show has come to an end
Every cloud has a silver lining	Be optimistic
Far cry from	A thing that is very different from something else
Feel a bit under the weather	Feeling sick or unhealthy
Flog a dead horse	To waste one’s energy on something
Go broke	become bankrupt
Handle with kid gloves	To treat with extreme care
Hard and fast	Definite
Hear through the grapevine	To hear news from someone who heard that news from someone else
Heart to heart	Very frankly
Hen-pecked husband	An admirer of wife in a servile manner
Hit the nail on the head	To do or say exactly the right thing
Hit the sack	To go to bed
In the heat of the moment	Overwhelmed by what’s happening at the moment
It takes two to tango	Both people involved in a bad situation are responsible for it
Jump on the bandwagon	Join a popular trend or activity
Keep something at bay	Keep something away
Keep the pot boiling	To keep going on actively
Left out in the cold	Ignored
Let the cat out of the bag	To make a long story short
Look for a needle in a haystack	To search for a thing that is very difficult to locate
Make a beeline for	Go straight to
Man in the street	A common man
Off the record	Unofficial; confidential
Oil someone’s hands	To give a bribe to someone
Old habits die hard	People find it difficult to change their accustomed behavior
Oldest trick in the book	A well known and much-used trick/method
On the wrong side of (Age number)	Age being more than
Open the floodgates	Release something that was previously under control
Pocket an insult	To bear an insult
Reap the harvest	Benefit or suffer as a direct result of past actions
Scratch one’s head	To be worried or perplexed
See eye to eye	To be in agreement with
Sink your teeth into	Do something with a lot of energy and enthusiasm
Skating on thin ice	Do or say something risky or something that could cause trouble
Snake in the grass	Hidden enemy
Stand in a good stead	To be useful or be of good service to someone
Take a back seat	Choose to be less important in a role
Taste of one’s own medicine	Treat people the same way they treated you
Till the cows come home	for a very long time, for an indefinite amount of time.
Tool in the hands of	Being under the control or authority of another.
Touch and go	Uncertain
Up in arms	To be angry
With open arms	Warmly, happily
Work against the clock	Try to work quickly in a limited time.

You have learned 100 Common Idioms for Competitive Exams. Also read about Subject Verb Agreement.