Gooogr/pie_idioms huggingface dataset:
Idiom: strike a chord (used idiomatically: no)
He was scornful , too , of the humanitarian - aid programme run for the contras by the State Department through the NHAO , which Owen familiarly called the ' no - way , no - how ' and the ' no - hope programme ' ; the State Department itself turned up on local code - sheets as ' wimps ' , the CIA as ' assholes ' , the portly Shultz as ' Nancy ' . No way , no how , no hope had to be countered by a passionate belief in justified struggle . The contra war struck a particular patriotic chord . It reminded its supporters of America 's own struggle in the War of Independence , and this sentimental analogy was drawn again and again . On one side were the Marxist commandantes , puppets of a giant colonizing power , in their camouflage fatigues and their designer sunglasses , carrying foreign ideology like a loathsome bacillus ; on the other the indigenous peasants , barefoot , in straw hats , driven to the point of taking up arms .
Idiom: green light (used idiomatically: yes)
But when Maxwell tried one out for size he found it impossible to squeeze in . ‘ The only car apart from a Rolls - Royce that he could fit into was an extra large Range Rover,’ says the driver , who also tells hair - raising tales of ferrying Maxwell about town . ‘ If I missed a green light he would shout at me to go through anyway,’ continues Ted . ‘ When I argued , he said if I lost my licence he would find another job for me in the organisation.’ Questor Column : Echoes of the great Armada
Idiom: easier said than done (used idiomatically: yes)
This evolutionary model has subsequently been replaced by a relativistic one ; this maintains that ‘ an observer should be careful to evaluate a culture first in terms of its own values , goals , and focuses before venturing to compare it ( either positively or negatively ) with any other culture’(Kraft 1979:49 ) . Patterns of behaviour which appear strange or even wrong from the standpoint of the outside observer interpreting what he sees in terms of his own cultural frame of reference , may , when understood in their broader cultural setting , be perfectly reasonable and even commendable . This is easier said than done . But to highlight the problem helps us to identify and confess our bias . It requires special gifts of insight and patience to move from a mono - cultural to a cross - cultural perspective .
Idiom: on someone's mind (used idiomatically: yes)
Sometimes I shave my legs , amazed at the majestic tedium of the activity . Then , once dressed , I set out on the great excursion : shopping , errands , and a treat in a cafe . But this fog plays strange tricks on a woman 's mind . The first thing that happens is an inversion of proportion , dramatic as Alice 's through the mirror : little things grow big , and big things disappear . A bitter cup of coffee , a rude salesgirl , a failed attempt to get the right ingredients for a vegetable lasagna , are the signposts of the day , and they are massive .
Idiom: word of mouth (used idiomatically: yes)
Finally , because this book seeks to assist users of search in selecting a good headhunting firm for their particular needs , the survey asked how companies had come across the headhunters they had employed . The replies suggested that the choice of consultant and search firm was initially quite random , which partly accounts for the unsatisfactory performance occasionally experienced . The French bank originally heard about the headhunters they had employed by word - of - mouth contact , and BICC had based their choice — perhaps more dangerously — on a review of headhunting firms ' own literature . Peter Samuel of Kingfisher cited two different routes : a recommendation of a consultancy from a referral source , i.e. an executive who has come into contact with the headhunter on a previous assignment ; and by direct experience of a particular search firm from the user point of view from a Kingfisher executive who had employed that firm on a previous occasion , before he worked for Kingfisher . The car - hire company referred simply to ' years of contacts ' , as did the mining conglomerate , the wines and spirits company and the industrial investment group .
Idiom: cut corners (used idiomatically: yes)
We can only require them to pay us , and not to get us into anything dangerous or illegal … ' ' You 've never worried about illegal, 'she snapped ' I may cut a corner or two , now and then,'I said stiffly . ' Anyone does , in business , if it helps to provide a better service … ' ' Curb, 'she broke in,'I should tell you that I 'm never closer to getting out than when you start sanctimonious about how you operate ' .
Idiom: in the hole (used idiomatically: no)
' I have to lift the players mentally and physically for games at Bristol City and Tranmere Rovers . ' We must get back to a rigid pattern , with players in the right holes . With players in the wrong holes , Watford played through us , round us , and over us . ' We lost our shape and we suffered . I just hope it is a one - off , because there is no time to rest players .
Idiom: face to face (used idiomatically: yes)
He felt suddenly older . He still had the jewelled dagger hidden in a barrel on board his ketch , and he had put the sack with the money belt in an old sea chest left to him by his father . He knew he was wealthy , set up for life , but he was already being made to pay for the taking of those lives : almost every night since , he had been troubled by dreams in which he found himself face to face once more with his victims . Perhaps Sam was right , after all . Perhaps he should abandon thoughts of privateering ; perhaps he should settle down and make a home .
Idiom: economical with the truth (used idiomatically: yes)
That 's why its discovery is the last goal for the time being of particle physics . That , sadly , is all you have room for on one side of a sheet of A4 paper . Do not be downcast that you have been economical with the truth . The real interest of the hunt for the Higgs particle is that it may not be quite what is expected . John Maddox
Idiom: on the square (used idiomatically: no)
( Irish counties , provinces and county towns can be a bit confusing , so I 'll spell it out carefully — I was now in Galway City , county town of County Galway . County Galway itself is part of the Province of Connaught , which contains five counties . ) The front door of the hotel looked out on John F. Kennedy Square , a wide - open space of seats and gardens named after the American President who had visited Galway in 1963 . Its real name is Eyre Square . Wearily and painfully , I lugged my bag along the perimeter of the square , past rows of little shops .
Idiom: put paid to (used idiomatically: yes)
Her replacement had proved a sad disappointment to the French soldiery , besides which the management and composer alike were said to be dissatisfied with the work in its present form . ‘ Yes , any schemes based on Leonore seem to have died the death . And here 's hoping we put paid to Fedorov too.’ Aranyos raised his glass . ‘ As Shakespeare has it : ‘ A great reckoning in a little room’.’
Idiom: make a pitch (used idiomatically: yes)
By Chris Walker MERSEYSIDE 'S case for Euro - cash was being hammered home in Brussels today . Liverpool City Council leader Harry Rimmer made a strong pitch for the region at a special hearing before a European Parliament committee examining the problems of large urban areas . He was the only British politician invited to the all - day session . Other cities represented included Dublin , Marseilles and Athens .
Idiom: in the pipeline (used idiomatically: yes)
No longer murderous savages or martyred innocents , they are now Nineties guys in touch with their inner feelings as well as the outer fringes of the ecology movement . Ever since Kevin Costner delighted impressionable audiences with Dances With Wolves , feathers , beads and tepees have been unusually in demand in Tinseltown . Native Americans are big business and a whole slew of revisionist Westerns are in the pipeline . Michael Mann 's The Last Of The Mohicans , an adaptation of the classic James Fenimore Cooper tale starring Daniel Day Lewis and American Indian Movement ( AIM ) leader Rusell Means , looks the best bet to subvert old frontier stereotypes . In the meantime , it is left to Michael Aspel to grapple with the contemporary record .
Idiom: up in the air (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ I do n't know all the details — it 's something to do with a house Peter tried to buy for his girl in Andorra . The agent tried to swindle him out of his deposit and Marc 's trying to sort it out . It 's all up in the air right now.’ ‘ You 're well out of it , lovey . Now it 's time to get on with your own life .
Idiom: mind over matter (used idiomatically: yes)
But having talked his reluctant owner and trainer into running , Davies proceeded to kid and cajole their unpredictable 11-year - old into running the race of his life . He achieved a comparable masterpiece on Ghofar in the 1989 Hennessy ( their only previous effort together ) and plans another this afternoon . ‘ It is all a question of mind over matter,’ Davies says —‘just like Last Suspect . I shall want a good start and be up there over the first few fences . ‘ You have to motivate horses like these , but once I 've got Ghofar 's blood up , we should be cruising .
Idiom: dice with death (used idiomatically: yes)
Did he think she was completely useless , the kind of girl who tripped over the side of boats half - dressed every other day of the week … ? ' Not everyone yearns to dice with death ! ' she retorted sweetly . ' I would hardly call sailing ' dicing with death ' . ' ' No . I suppose you would n't .
Idiom: keep up appearances (used idiomatically: yes)
Mrs Bouquet . the next , yeah that 's right yeah yeah I put keep on keeping up appearances or something , yeah . appearances , Bids for f various funding , there are three issues on that that came up at C S M T.
Idiom: prodigal son (used idiomatically: yes)
He promised to much . He was his own worst enemy . Like the prodigal son , he wasted his substance in riotous living . Er , it 's a bit of back background then about Branwell . You know anything about Branwell .
Idiom: in the hole (used idiomatically: no)
QUINN : Only one goal SHEER EL AS NICK BLOWS UP NICK FALDO dropped six shots in ten disastrous holes yesterday — and gifted the Belgian Open title to Spain 's Miguel Angel Jimenez . Nightmare Nick , three ahead at the eighth , took 42 on the back nine and left Jimenez to pocket £ 100,000 with a 274 aggregate . Patty Sheehan shot a final - round 67 at Woburn to become the first woman to win the US and British Opens in the same year .
Idiom: get lost (used idiomatically: no)
Callum came in just then , whistling to the music , apparently oblivious to the air of angry tension , the sparks that emanated dangerously between Luke and Robyn . He staggered a little , or perhaps it was a weird sort of dance , and then rooted around among the half - empty plates , cramming whatever food he could find into his mouth . ' Get lost , Callum ! ' Luke 's voice was terse . He did n't even bother to look at him .
Idiom: on the nose (used idiomatically: yes)
The Bishop 's secretary was small and sleek like a mole , with padded compartments in his clothes for the precious books he carried with him everywhere — an accounting book and a psalter . Their weight was such that the seam of his coat gaped behind his neck , his shoulders were bowed , and his front hem trailed on the ground . He walked with a teeter , as though he was in the middle of falling on his nose , and brandished a glass lens on a stick as a warning to those in his way that his eyesight was not of the best . He never thought to look through the lens . ' We are travelling players , sir , ' said Garvey with his God - like smile .
Idiom: off the shelf (used idiomatically: yes)
The purpose of this is to increase through rewards and punishments the number of times the child chooses to perform acceptable behaviour and not to perform unacceptable behaviour . Parents and adults deal with children in this way automatically . For example , in any supermarket you will be able to see a parent criticising ( punishing ) a child for lifting a tin off a shelf and then praising ( rewarding ) the child for putting it back when told . This process takes place in thousands of situations with different behaviours and over time the child learns the standards for our society . In older children who are badly behaved , operant learning tells us they are choosing not to produce wanted behaviour .
Idiom: hold someone's hand (used idiomatically: yes)
Downstairs , he made me sit on his knee . How I hate to sit on his knee . He held my hand too , and pulled at the fingers one by one . His knees were not comfortable . They are not safe .
Idiom: beg the question (used idiomatically: yes)
The dust spreads far and wide in the wind , and there is a good chance that some particles of it will happen to land in another stream , hitherto not ' infected ' with the seeds of this kind of dam - making clay . Once infected by the right sort of dust , a new stream starts to grow crystals of dam - making clay , and the whole depositing , damming , drying , eroding cycle begins again . To call this a ' life ' cycle would be to beg an important question , but it is a cycle of a sort , and it shares with true life cycles the ability to initiate cumulative selection . Because streams are infected by dust ' seeds ' blown from other streams , we can arrange the streams in an order of ' ancestry'and ' descent ' . The clay that is damming up pools in stream B arrived there in the form of dust crystals blown from stream A. Eventually , the pools of stream B will dry up and make dust , which will infect streams F and P. With respect to the source of their dam - making clay , we can arrange streams into ' family trees ' .
Idiom: fall from grace (used idiomatically: yes)
She allowed herself to be shown out , allowed herself to be talked to but said not a word . It was her old mistress from whom she had hoped for much , woman to woman , and none of his soothing phrases meant anything to her . As she descended the stairs , she appreciated for the first time how far she had fallen from grace . She had suspected in Lucca , all those months ago , that Mrs Browning no longer cared for her as once she had done but she saw that it was worse than that : she was a nuisance , plain and simple . Someone who annoyed with her need for sympathy , who irritated with her shameless display of pathos .
Idiom: at the crossroads (used idiomatically: yes)
Within days of the first autumn frosts a large brown patch of vines can be seen growing out from this area . In spring the effect is less noticeable , but potentially more dangerous . At the little crossroads two kilometres north of Mailly , if you look to your extreme left you will see the lower edge of some vineyards one and - a - half kilometres away . These are the lowest - quality vines of Verzenay , a relatively small percentage of the grand cru 's 403 hectares . But the long and very flat strip of vines immediately to your left , which extend back to the A4 motorway , are inferior to Verzenay 's poorest vines ; these are the vineyards of Sillery .
Idiom: in the running (used idiomatically: yes)
Sapura Holdings Sdn Bhd , Kuala Lumpur will launch Malaysia 's first locally designed and manufactured cellular portable telephone in August : the unit will launch two models — one for the 900MHz network followed a few months later by another for the proposed 800MHz network and the new phone could double Sapura 's current 10 % share of Malaysia 's mobile phone market . SUN HAMPERED BY MOTIF AND DCE Sun Microsystems Inc has been closed out of a few significant contracts lately because it could n't tick off the Motif and Distributed Computing Environment boxes on the bids : the Common Open Systems Environment will at least get it back in the running for a $ 20 m deal at Boeing Co that requires Motif and Sun insiders reckon that the company will now include Motif in its price list almost immediately — the best guess is that SunSoft will offer reasonably priced Motif upgrades for Solaris 1 . X and make it standard with Solaris 2.1 and 2 . X , making those operating systems more attractive .
Idiom: have the hots for (used idiomatically: no)
It 's at once surreal and introspective , bizarre and brave , but never loses the sense of suspicion which holds it together so chillingly . The cast 's work is deceptively effortless , slowly accentuating the suspension and narrowing the focus of culpability . Plotting the perfect crime has kept the nefarious mind active since Herod had the hots for infanticide , but few malcontents have successfully mastered the art . It 's much easier to write about it ; to unravel how it might be done , rather than how it will be done . Then , of course , the trick is to get away with it …
Idiom: get the better of (used idiomatically: yes)
He became more and more depressed , and sought consolation in the local pub , where he was soon well known as a talkative character . Encouraged by his father and several friends , Branwell acquired an artist 's studio in Bradford , where , at first , he made an effort , and cultivated influential friends . But , sad to say , talking and drinking got the better of him , and his work deteriorated . Twice he became a tutor , but he neglected his work . In one case he had an affair with the mistress of the house , which led to his dismissal .
Idiom: break new ground (used idiomatically: yes)
IT IS a shame that discussion of the Environmental Protection Bill will be dominated by the ill - judged decision to dismember the Nature Conservancy Council . The clauses on pollution and on genetically manipulated organisms deserve more attention than they are now likely to get . Although overdue , two elements of the bill can properly claim to be breaking new ground . The first is what is known as ‘ Integrated Pollution Control’(IPC ) . This was first proposed in 1974 but when the Environmental Protection Bill becomes law , the UK will be the first European country to put in place a national system of integrated control The importance of IPC is that it aims to treat the environment as it is : an inter - related system where pollutants can be exchanged between air , water and land .
Idiom: save face (used idiomatically: yes)
He flew to Prague to convince the embassy refugees it was not a trap . Their delirious joy at his announcement , said Hans - Dietrich Genscher , the West German Foreign Minister , was the most moving moment of his life . Only the canny Mr Genscher , who knew the East Germans ' minds , could have thought of letting the regime save face by ‘ expelling’ their own people across their own territory . But millions of Germans will not forget the voice of Winfried Wolk , a leader of the hitherto tame East German Christian Democrat party , almost breaking as he warned over Western television on Wednesday night that East Germany 's ferment could end like that in China . Out of the USSR : Evil is out of the closet as Moscow copies the West
Idiom: by the skin of your teeth (used idiomatically: yes)
The first time in Ireland where I nearly got my head blown off.’ He tapped the bullet scar on the side of his forehead . ‘ And the second time in Norfolk you took a bullet in the right shoulder and only got away by the skin of your teeth , leaving Kurt Steiner behind.’ ‘ Ah , so you know about that?’ ‘ Operation Eagle ?
Idiom: take someone to task (used idiomatically: no)
The action will be carried out by officers from the council 's environmental health division . Food row : A company which began serving up hot meals from an industrial unit on the Aycliffe Trading Estate has been taken to task by Sedgefield council . The council says units 10 and 13 , Leaside , on the estate started selling food without planning permission to do so . FOR Darlington councillors to agree to have sheltered housing at the Court Arcade site is another bad decision .
Idiom: not a pretty sight (used idiomatically: yes)
' Good afternoon , Miss Trunchbull , ' they chirruped . The Headmistress stood before the class , legs apart , hands on hips , glaring at the small boys and girls who sat nervously at their desks in front of her . ' Not a very pretty sight , ' she said . Her expression was one of utter distaste , as though she were looking at something a dog had done in the middle of the floor . ' What a bunch of nauseating little warts you are . '
Idiom: a little bird told me (used idiomatically: yes)
The whole community was delighted for her . As Benny had walked down the town , Mr Kennedy called her into the chemist . ' A little bird told me it was your birthday , ' he said . ' I 'm ten , ' Benny said . ' I know .
Idiom: to all intents and purposes (used idiomatically: yes)
The ERPS team are very fortunate that this facility is available to them because it has enabled the reconstruction work to be undertaken more efficiently . However , it must be remembered that much of the work until these last few weeks has been undertaken outside in the kind of conditions experienced by most preservationists . IT was on a very wet Saturday afternoon that I found myself on the top of the North Downs observing whiffs of smoke emerging from a boiler which to all intents and purposes was standing among a mountain of waste metal in a field almost miles from anywhere . In fact it was only a minute or so from the M27 and we had just passed over the Queen Elizabeth Bridge at Dartford . The rain was pouring down in torrents and visibility was poor .
Idiom: raise hell (used idiomatically: yes)
All they had to do was live life through an alcoholic haze and generally raise hell — hence the term ‘ Hellraiser’ . One man had it down to a fine art — Lee Marvin . For him raising hell meant having a wonderful time . And he did . It also meant living a certain philosophy .
Idiom: on the house (used idiomatically: no)
Voice over The stake out has been going on all day . The European Eagle Owl Thumper has landed on a house on the estate where her owner lives . She left her home last night as her owner tried to weigh her in the garden . Interview .
Idiom: get away with murder (used idiomatically: yes)
COLIN PRICE THE furious Pakistani cricket team started a racism row last night after England batsman Allan Lamb accused them of cheating by tampering with the ball . In a Mirror exclusive headlined ‘ How Pakistan Cheat At Cricket’ , Lamb said the tourists had got away with murder all summer . But pace bowlers Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis said in a statement : ‘ We are amazed that a fellow professional has stooped so low as to make such unfounded comments . ‘ We can only guess at Allan Lamb 's motives in the Daily Mirror , but we hope they are nothing so base as money or , even worse , our nationality.’
Idiom: hot air (used idiomatically: yes)
By using the tool at a high heat setting , rusted screws can be freed by making the metal expand , then contract One of the numerous tasks that can be tackled by the Peugeot is the moulding and welding of plastics . Use a low heat setting for Peugeot hot air gun B & D WM750 WORKMATE Black & Decker 's portable workbench , the Workmate , probably needs very little introduction .
Idiom: cut and run (used idiomatically: yes)
Barclays says it has no plans to pull other plugs . It will manage the Speyhawk properties under the receiver , rather than sell them soon . Its three big domestic rivals do not intend to cut and run either . Nor are bulk sales the only strategy that American banks are pursuing . Citicorp , which has more real - estate problems than any other bank — $ 1.2 billion in 1992 ( see chart on page 102)— plans to sell its properties slowly .