Gooogr/pie_idioms huggingface dataset:
Idiom: gather dust (used idiomatically: yes)
In spite of stubborn efforts on my part , repeated on many occasions as I was determined to master this skill , I have never , never succeeded in doing it ! The best I have ever managed is to replace the stitches one by one on to the needle hooks with a transfer tool and even then I lost more stitches ( and had to ‘ save’ them ) than I transferred successfully . So that was the point at which the garter bar went under the settee and gathered dust . Whenever I want to knit bands of reversed stocking stitch now , I know two ways to do it which are much better than using the garter bar . The first way is by taking the work off the machine with waste yarn , turning it and rehanging with the plain side towards me .
Idiom: blow hot and cold (used idiomatically: yes)
The changing face of Armagh football is reflected in the fact that the side includes three players making their championship debuts , while a further four in the squad have still to experience championship combat . Physically strong in the central positions Armagh 's greatest strength is their vastly experienced and resolute half back line of Martin McQuillan , John Grimley and John Rafferty . Mark Grimley and Jarlath Burns are a formidable midfield pairing by any standards , but even with players the calibre of Neil Smyth , Kieran McGurk and Ger Houlahan there are still too many question marks over an attack that too often blows hot and cold . Despite having to play away from home Armagh remain the bookies choice to advance to face Tyrone . But it will be desperately close as two exceptionally committed sides bid to keep their championship season alive .
Idiom: off the hook (used idiomatically: yes)
And , having said that we have n't , at this moment , approved an under - let anyway , so No . But , you know , the situation is difficult in that if the people did move in there 's not a lot you can do about it because it would mean that you would have to surrender the lease , which means you 've let the guarantors off the hook for paying the then and you 're left without a tenant whatsoever . Erm it 's , it 's trying to get an amicable solution to it . Yeah .
Idiom: go public (used idiomatically: yes)
He was made aware that nuclear weapons were no substitute for the presence of frigates on station and infantry battalions on the ground in maintaining stability in Afro - Asia . In developing the future size and shape of the Royal Navy , the Admiralty had two useful and recent precedents : the successful use of carrier - borne aircraft in interdicting the Chinese supply routes during the Korean War ; and the much more recent use of carriers to provide the lion 's share of tactical air support during the Suez landings , and the ad hoc use of the carriers Theseus and Ocean as Commando - helicopter - carriers in the amphibious assault on Port Said . Realizing that they had a fight for Naval survival on their hands , the Admiralty took the unprecedented step of ‘ going public’ to win support of opinion - makers , politicians , industrialists , and Commonwealth representatives in London . They staged a major presentation of Naval policy , called Exercise ‘ Fairlead’ , at the Royal Naval College , Greenwich , in May 1957 . What the general effect of their anti - Sandys offensive was on informed opinion in the country at large and in Whitehall in particular is not easy to judge .
Idiom: join the club (used idiomatically: no)
Officially , there are two methods of obtaining tickets . First , take out a Murrayfield debenture — fine if you can afford ( a minimum ) £ 1,200 , not so good if you ca n't . Second , ' join a rugby club ' , also unsatisfactory because:(a ) it still does n't guarantee you tickets ; and ( b ) there are many good reasons why a rugby supporter may not wish to be a member of a club . A personal example : my rugby loyalty lies with Hawick , but for career reasons I live in Edinburgh , and I rarely have the opportunity to attend home games , so club membership is n't really worth considering . But this does n't mean that I am anything less than an enthusiastic supporter of Scottish rugby .
Idiom: turn a blind eye (used idiomatically: yes)
Q Quite apart from any question of how polishing and scuffing influences the behaviour of the ball , is there any reason why any interference with its state should be allowed ? Rather than turning a blind eye to the polishers and legislating against the scuffers , we should more logically allow no interference … on either side of the ball . Tampering with the seam is much the most harmful form of ball vandalism . I remember a case midway between the wars at The Oval , while playing for Surrey 2nd XI against Buckinghamshire .
Idiom: off the hook (used idiomatically: yes)
Crowther , 59 , hopes to be back for the new series next year , but wo n't be well enough for the show on January 2 . Russ , left , said : ' It is an honour . ' Love caller is off hook A JILTED woman who rang her ex - boyfriend up to 36 times a day has been cleared of phone pest charges because she was in love . Former model Carol Lawson , 42 , from Park Gate , Hants , refused to hang up on her relationship with neighbour Michael Hughes after he dumped her for another woman .
Idiom: sink or swim (used idiomatically: yes)
Yeah . And they 're having these X billions to finance er capital investment cos cos they 're not a private company . I mean the furore about actually leasing trains has taken several years to develop erm And you just have to look at at the moment now and he does n't know if he 's sinking or swimming basically . Er a complete dead loss about which way to go and turn basically . Yeah yeah .
Idiom: close to home (used idiomatically: yes)
Mr Austick recalled that it was almost 19 years since he ' turned the Tories out ' at a by - election and said Coun . Hall was poised to repeat that surprise victory in Skipton and Ripon on April 9 . There have been mutterings about the fact that Mr Peter Bergg , the Liberal Democrat candidate for Darlington , lives outside the constituency in Newton Aycliffe . But according to his campaign manager Mr Brian Fisk , it 's all much closer to home than it was in 1966 . In that election the candidate dropped out at the last minute and the only man who could be found to replace him was living in Zambia . The records show that Robert Noel Waddington Oakeshott , adviser to the Zambian Government , went on to poll 3,891 votes .
Idiom: seen better days (used idiomatically: yes)
In fact it has been so hot and humid today that I have had to get an electric fan and put it on in my room . As elsewhere , the people have been very kind here , and have let us teach more or less what we want . We are working at Nanking University , in rather cramped and primitive conditions , for the buildings have seen better days . But as elsewhere , we are given a little ‘ staff - room’ to relax in , and are plied with cups of tea and cigarettes at all times , to make us feel at home . As we work , we can look out of the window now and then and see the students doing physical exercises and practising sports for the sports day on Monday — they 're very keen on physical jerks here , and at Peking we used to be woken up at 7 a.m. to find the Chinese staff doing P.E.
Idiom: from scratch (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ We would like to have more foreign shareholders . The Portuguese capital market is currently in a state of apathy and relatively stagnant , so the bank has decided to enlarge and diversify the shareholding,’ says BCP 's chairman Jorge Jardin Goncalves . The international share sale is the latest in a series of foreign initiatives by Portugal 's fastest growing bank , which was started from scratch by a group of industrialists in 1985 and now ranks fourth in terms of assets in a country notorious for its profusion of banks . Faced with a rush of competition from foreign banks when Portugal is forced to remove remaining barriers to entry after next year , banks such as BCP have been expanding fast in an attempt to ensure their market share of domestic business in banking and other financial services . BCP has established links with Friends Provident in Britain and has an insurance joint venture in Portgual with Cariplo , an Italian bank .
Idiom: on the ground (used idiomatically: yes)
We have now moved off the railway and appear to be moving across country , stopping and starting as someone scouts out ahead . We have now been marching for more than four hours , it 's still very dark . A burst of automatic fire up front and to our left brings the column to a halt as we then squat on the wet ground and watch the tracers shoot off across the night sky . We 're off again , now wading almost waist-deep in water , stopping , starting , bumping into the man in front . What appears to be a mortar explosion close by causes the column to get down on the flooded ground .
Idiom: out on a limb (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ One hint , do n't be so coy with the men you deal with , they might misconstrue your intentions and try to take advantage of you.’ He smiled as she walked past him her cheeks burning . ‘ And get yourself a good shoe designer and a good cutter , make your own shoes , begin an emporium instead of just importing and selling the leather , at least then you would not find yourself out on a limb in a man 's world . ‘ Emily took a cab back to Mrs Simons 's house and went directly to her room . She sank on to the bed and closed her eyes , ideas racing through her mind .
Idiom: stick your neck out (used idiomatically: yes)
You do n't get so tired . You do n't have to try out new , risky things in the classroom . You do n't have to stick your neck out in meetings . You do n't have to jeopardize your standing in the staffroom . Then we asked the students to sit quietly with their eyes closed and think about the costs .
Idiom: on and off (used idiomatically: no)
As for lunch up the mountain , forget it — if you can . Ditto night life in most resorts . Resorts : star spotters head for Aspen , Colorado , which has all grades of skiing — at a price ; Vail is smart too ; neighbouring Copper Mountain and Breckenridge are less awesomely large and more youth oriented ; experts on and off the piste love Jackson Hole , Wyoming ; Utah 's powder paradises are Park City , Snowbird and Alta , with Robert Redford 's Sundance as a family alternative ; mogul maniacs bash the hell out of their knees in Taos , New Mexico and the old silver mining town of Telluride . ANDORRA Andorra has the same share of the market — six per cent— as Switzerland , for diametrically opposite reasons .
Idiom: come to terms with (used idiomatically: yes)
He gave a little shrug . ‘ The snag was , she found it impossible to accept that anyone could possibly find her less than addictive . I hurt her pride and she was never able to come to terms with that . But you , Shannon Lea — you are the only woman I 've ever loved , the only one I ever will love . You 're in my soul forever.’
Idiom: one and the same (used idiomatically: yes)
Dead metaphors also have a certain syntactic rigidity ; the quality of being ‘ dead’ is closely tied to a particular syntactic form , and with any modification the metaphor springs to life : compare He has one foot in the grave and One of his feet is in the grave . Even if translucency and opacity can be satisfactorily distinguished , it is not necessarily the case that a particular expression can be unambiguously characterised as one or the other . This is because the two properties may coexist in one and the same expression . Take the case of She gave him a piece of her mind . A good part of the meaning of this expression is accessible via normal metaphorical interpretation — it may be inferred that some opinion has been communicated .
Idiom: look on the bright side (used idiomatically: yes)
I said nothing , but my mother did n't seem to notice . She went on : " It 's a pity you did n't wait a little longer , but there you are . Look on the bright side . You 'll still have your best years left over when your children are grown - up . " " Are they the best years ? "
Idiom: pure and simple (used idiomatically: yes)
The quotations were accurate but one sensed within Aumann 's text an underlying idea : not just that Palestine was empty of people — which it assuredly was not — but that perhaps those people who did live there somehow did not deserve to do so ; that they were too slovenly to use modern irrigation methods or to plant trees or to build brick houses . That Palestinian Arabs did cultivate the land in the nineteenth century — as a glance at Roberts ' lithographs clearly proves — went unnoticed by Aumann , who concluded his thesis by stating that the contention that 95 per cent of the land of the state of Israel had belonged to Arabs ‘ has absolutely no foundation in fact.’ To Horowitz , the Palestinians were now refugees , pure and simple . ‘ When the entity of the mandate ended,’ he said , ‘ two other states — Jewish and Arab — were to have come into existence but the Arab state did not . It was annexed by Jordan .
Idiom: pie in the sky (used idiomatically: yes)
Likewise , dealing in public issues such as Rolls Royce hardly proved inspiring for dealers at one firm . Anyone who opted to work full - time on British Gas for instance , was busy six days a week , thirteen hours a day at one stage . Eventual payment was promised at the rate of 5Op per deal , but this proved pie in the sky . Profits were divided amongst those who had helped out , and payment turned out to be at a substantially smaller rate . Naive trainees were often thus coaxed into doing hard , boring work for little remuneration .
Idiom: once and for all (used idiomatically: yes)
Voice over The families of thousands of workers at a key atomic research plant are to be surveyed to discover how many children have suffered from cancer . It 's part of a new study which it 's hoped will determine once and for all whether there is a greater incidence of cancer in the families of radiation workers . Kim Barnes reports . HARWELL / Oxfordshire
Idiom: have a ball (used idiomatically: no)
And it was Wise who next went close with a free kick from near the corner spot which caught the wind and eluded Southall before bouncing to safety . But Townsend gave his side a deserved lead in the 19th minute The Republic of Ireland midfielder was perfectly positioned in the nineteenth minute when Graeme Le Saux touched back a crossfield ball from Fleck for his skipper to drive home a low shot . Chelsea might have increased their lead 15 minutes later , but Wise elected to shoot across the face of goal rather than pull the ball back to the well-positioned Fleck . Everton produced their only chance of the half 10 minutes before the break when Peter Beardsley hit a ferocious drove into keeper Kevin Hitchcock 's arms from 20 yards . After the interval , Everton began to match Chelsea in midfield .
Idiom: at the crossroads (used idiomatically: yes)
He pressed his thumbnail into the map 's thick paper . Sharpe stepped a pace forward to look down at the map . The Duke 's thumbnail had forced a small scar into the map at another crossroads , this one much closer to Brussels and just south of a village with the odd name of Waterloo . ' He 's humbugged me ! ' the Duke said again , but this time with a grudging admiration for his opponent . ' Humbugged ? '
Idiom: on a roll (used idiomatically: yes)
Still , in the next few days as the news began to filter in from Niki 's hospital that Niki had been given the last rites , that he had inhaled burning fuel and damaged his lungs , that his face had been appallingly burned , the facts did begin to sink in . A week after the Nürburgring , I think anyone would have been hard put to imagine that Niki could possibly return to racing . James 's victory gave him 35 points to Lauda 's 61 , his car was clearly among the best , he had matured greatly as a driver , he was on a good roll himself : the championship seemed to be there for his taking . There is in fact a fine line in Hunt 's book in which he describes his reaction , on getting to Austria — Niki 's home circuit — and learning that Niki was a very sick man indeed . James says simply that ' it was suddenly very important to me that he should live ' .
Idiom: within living memory (used idiomatically: yes)
In 1878 Bell travelled to Scotland and London on his honeymoon , taking the opportunity to present a pair of ivory telephones to Queen Victoria . 1879 saw Glasgow 's first telephone exchange , the Douglas , named after Douglas Street . Within living memory , like mine for instance , it was possible to dial numbers beginning D.O.U … . The ' Douglas ' was installed for the use of doctors , and was closely followed by subscriber exchanges for other businesses like the Iron Consortium , otherwise known as the ' Iron Ring ' . Within a few years over 800 exchange lines and 300 private lines were in use operating from the new headquarters of the amalgamated telephone companies , the National Telephone Company Headquarters at 13 Royal Exchange Square .
Idiom: over the top (used idiomatically: yes)
You see the idea , was if you had lights in your house and there was just a kink , or chink , they used to call them in those days , they could be spotted from the air , so th You either had wooden shutters at your window , or blackout curtaining . You were n't allowed to show any lights . Even the , what few bits of lorries were on the road , they had a special mask on with er a shield over the top , so that the light was n't visible up above . Cos , probably you do n't realize that , even a cigarette light , if you drew a cigarette , like that , and er and made it glow , it 's visible for quite a few hundred yards in the darkness . And consequently we was all subject , and you were fined very heavily if you were , if you tore these what 's- a - names , blackouts , that 's the name .
Idiom: not worth the candle (used idiomatically: yes)
She hints that teachers and local officials will do their best to blunt the impact of the market . Local heads will not allow a school run by a friend to go under . Even heads who do not share this cartel mentality may find that aggressive expansion is not worth the candle . Additional pupils bring extra costs as well as extra cash . Over - zealous expansion may be counter - productive as well as burdensome : a good school may cease to be a good school if its classes are overflowing and its playgrounds full of makeshift accommodation .
Idiom: behind closed doors (used idiomatically: yes)
And again one of the great concerns that we have with the development of N H S Trusts , is those Trust Boards are able to determine their own policies in respect to staffing , to set their own pay scales for staff , also they are able to do their business to a large extent behind closed doors . Legally they are only required to have one public or open meeting at which the Community Health Council is invited to attend . Again my concern about that is that Trusts bring with them a shroud of secrecy , able to do business behind closed doors . And much of the concerns that we 've been able to express about the Health Service has been as a direct consequence of us having information as to for example the numbers of bed closures , as for example the numbers of people on waiting lists . Trust status brings with it a cloud of secrecy .
Idiom: behind bars (used idiomatically: no)
But despite the self - importance of the boast , the League no longer existed as much more than a figment of its leaders ' fantasies . John Beckett , despite his gallant preface to National Socialism Now , resigned and joined another diminutive Fascist group . The headquarters of the League became a club where members could go for a drink and where Joyce served behind the bar . He was a prophet without honour and yet he had kept the purity of his belief unsullied . Though he continued to profess his patriotism as an Englishman and refuted the suggestion that he wanted to imitate Hitler , it was in Germany alone that his hope seemed capable of embodiment .
Idiom: in the fast lane (used idiomatically: yes)
Suddenly , with little explanation , that had been transformed into an £ 89,000 loss . Surley the changes were not designed to shift debit figures into the past in Mr Young 's time as stewardship , so as to avoid burdening the new management team in the future ? In the fast lane IT IS not only City fatcats who could be worried by the prospect of a Labour Government . In a move reminiscent of the news that London brokers are being paid their April salaries in advance of the election , car dealer Reg Vardy has reported the sale of £ 1.1 m of luxury cars in the North in the past month .
Idiom: on someone's mind (used idiomatically: no)
Freud later developed the technique of free association , a triumph which is often neglected in the discussion of his controversial theories . He tried to break down the father - role position doctors held , so the patients could feel more relaxed and see him almost as an equal . He tried to get them to say whatever was on their minds and by following certain lines of thought tried to trace the root of the hysteria . This technique of free association is a contribution to psychology which is used widely by psychotherapists , including behaviourists . Using this technique , he often traced the symptoms back to the early years of the patients ' life .
Idiom: full marks (used idiomatically: yes)
Contribution to society : Works like ten men and fulfils valuable function keeping Sloaney hackettes off the streets . Not a parasite Overall assessment : Full marks for background , education , appearance . But is bloody ambitious and no mug . A wolf in twit 's clothing
Idiom: pull a face (used idiomatically: yes)
My workforce has a reputation for being committed to the company . I 'm sure you 'll soon find that that applies to you , too . ' Lisa , seated stiffly on the sofa opposite him , had pulled a defiantly sceptical face . ' I would n't count on it . You can hardly expect commitment and company loyalty from an employee who 's been press - ganged into working for you .
Idiom: spot on (used idiomatically: no)
Please , Lord , if it is Thy will , let me — ‘ The sound of a horse and chaise brought him to his feet . He moved away from the spot on which he had prayed and gazed over Crummock Water . The conveyance came around the corner , quite recklessly , and pulled up at the sight of him . An old and old - fashioned gentleman — full heavy wig , long waistcoat , antique buckled shoes — was in the chaise with a girl who could have been his granddaughter .
Idiom: dish the dirt (used idiomatically: yes)
Mahogany is a very warm wood as far as tone is concerned , but this body is so thin that the result is quite bright and snappy — great for jazz / fusion rhythm sounds and a perfect foil for sound processing . The guitar 's low profile , slight body and super - thin neck make for a very lightweight playing experience and I could n't detect any balance problems , either . Playing at volume , the FGM proves itself capable of dishing out the dirt , the Dual Sound humbucker retaining its tone and not thinning out to a tuneless buzz . CONCLUSION It was interesting to keep Gambale 's own sound at the back of my mind while probing the capabilities of this guitar .
Idiom: break the ice (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ Everywhere we 've gone there 's been a tremendous feeling of warmth shown us . ‘ The acceptance of our presence throughout the Caribbean was going to be the most vital thing , because the people here took the anti - apartheid struggle very seriously . ‘ It was imperative to come here quickly , break the ice and get that acceptance . I believe , fundamentally , that has been achieved . ‘ The fact we lost three one - day internationals is neither here nor there .
Idiom: drop the ball (used idiomatically: yes)
The children stand around the leader in a semi - circle and are numbered off until the last two become Jack and then King or Queen . The ball is thrown to the number one and then to two and so on . Those who drop the ball return to number one and those below that number move up one place . If the King or Queen is out then everyone moves up . 73 Bench ball