Gooogr/pie_idioms huggingface dataset:
Idiom: stroke of luck (used idiomatically: yes)
The woman 's voice made her realise something was wrong . ‘ You 're not the place I —’ ‘ You may have got the wrong number , dear , but it 's a stroke of luck for you … and for your baby.’ ‘ It 's not a baby , it 's a lump of jelly!’ Margaret panicked , she 'd got the wrong number , the wrong place , the wrong advertisement , why did n't they get off the line , why did n't they leave her —
Idiom: under the table (used idiomatically: yes)
Show him , Vron . " Vron sat up , tightening the folds of her kaftan . She reached under the coffee - table and produced a pornographic magazine called Debonair … Now I know my pornographic magazines : Debonair belonged to the cheaper range , targeted at the manual worker 's handjob , with many a salacious housewife or spotty - bummed Swede twisting herself in and out of chain - store under - wear . Sit down , John,"she said , and rubbed the seat beside her with her palm .
Idiom: set eyes on (used idiomatically: no)
Although technically the Treaty of Vienna guaranteed the Poles autonomy within Prussian law and government , in fact in Pomerania the idea was never put into practice . For the Kaszubes and Poles of Danzig Poland was a distant idea only . Most of them would never set eyes on the place and few felt any loyalty towards it . For illiterate and landless serfs and peasants the language of their landlord made little difference to their lives . Conditions of service on the estates were arduous and whether the landlord came from Berlin or Warsaw , whether he spoke German or Polish , it was certain that his agent would always make himself understood .
Idiom: break someone's heart (used idiomatically: yes)
You ought to withdraw honourably while there 's still time.’ ‘ Oh Jack , Jack —’ ‘ I do n't want you to break your heart over this . I need you , I need your support . Why has n't Gildas been here lately , is it because he disapproves?’
Idiom: across the board (used idiomatically: yes)
She sat on a chaise longue , elegant lines and the comfortless gentility of horsehair beneath an antique sateen . She felt constrained to sit and light - headed when she rose and crossed the long boards to fold back the shutters and open the windows wide . Sunlight came into the room , slanting across the boards in languid diamonds . She sat down , avoiding the huge mirror behind him , trying to avoid his gaze . He sat watching her from a deep armchair , legs crossed at the ankles , hands lightly clasped .
Idiom: strain at the leash (used idiomatically: yes)
In line with Arts Council thinking , he said a large proportion would go on capital expenditure : ‘ We want to leave some heritage behind us , too’ . But , if there is really to be any streamlining , Mr Rittner 's nettle must be grasped . The Regional Arts Boards are straining at the leash , wanting to take over as many of the Arts Council 's responsibilities as they can get . Some of Mr Mellor 's favourite orchestras will probably be among companies handed over , albeit kicking and screaming . The last redoubt of the ‘ arm 's length’ policy would then be the national theatre companies and a chorus of voices is calling for their retention by the Arts Council .
Idiom: under the sun (used idiomatically: yes)
She has lately developed a tiresome habit of becoming a mere compendium of Paxford 's views ; every conceivable topic is met with a reply beginning ‘ Paxford says’ . I am resigned to being addressed by the new name of Pax - Wanxie , but if she is to become a mere conduit of the Paxford philosophy it will be a very great bore . Further , it makes me angry with myself to find that the perfectly natural and utterly unfair result is that I begin to dislike Paxford , no exercise of the will convincing me that it is not the unfortunate P. who is boring me with his views on everything under the sun . A magnificent example of the ‘ Paxford says’ routine is provided when Maureen and Minto have been into Oxford to get two wireless sets on approval . The scene is the kitchen at The Kilns and both sets are plugged in .
Idiom: beyond the pale (used idiomatically: yes)
They also pointed to what they claimed were morale - boosting concessions by the Soviet leadership to the armed forces , notably the promotion of Defence Minister Dmitry Yazov to the rank of Marshal on April 28 , and the holding of a big military parade in Red Square on May 9 to mark the 45th anniversary of the end of Second World War hostilities in Europe . The allegation that there had been a military show of strength was flatly denied by Yakovlev on May 4 . Moreover , on the eve of the May 9 parade Gorbachev told a gathering of senior Army personnel in Moscow 's Bolshoi Theatre that immediate reforms were needed in the armed forces and that it could not be " beyond the pale of criticism " . On the following day this view was endorsed by Yazov in a speech in Red Square . Yeltsin 's election as Russian President
Idiom: bear in mind (used idiomatically: yes)
Mr President , I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur , Mr Koch , on his magnificent work and his positive cooperation with the Commission with regard to improving the texts and presenting this report and this proposal ; in the end there is only one amendment on the requirements for the aptitude examination for safety advisers in the transport of dangerous goods by road , rail or inland waterway . We understand that it is important that the two institutions - Parliament and Commission - cooperate and work together and that the current cooperation with the Committee on Regional Policy , and in particular the transport group , is magnificent . The common position includes practically all of the amendments accepted by the Commission and harmonises the minimum examination requirements for safety advisers and , at second reading , we can accept the amendment on the proposed date , which is much more realistic than the one originally suggested by the Commission , bearing in mind that we have now spent several years debating this question . Very briefly , I would like to thank the various Members for their interventions and to tell you that safety is one of the Commission 's priorities in the field of transport . As Mr Simpson has said very correctly , this is a process which we can never take for granted or regard as having come to an end .
Idiom: few and far between (used idiomatically: yes)
Disadvantages : If there 's a last - minute emergency , you may find yourself without a sitter ; you have to watch out that neither side abuses the bargain you 've made by going out far more than the other . Agencies These can be a useful standby , though they 're rather few and far between across the country . It also means leaving your child with someone you — and your children — do n't know , unless you use the same agency babysitter on a regular basis and have a chance to build up a relationship . Judy Thomas runs Babysitters Unlimited , a long - established agency operating in Southwest London .
Idiom: in the flesh (used idiomatically: yes)
We all want to do a mighty work for God , but do not realise that we are living on privatised religious estates on the outskirts of the city of the world . If we want to rescue the captives from the clutches of the Enemy , we must first wake up and realise that we are ourselves leading captive lives . We are not in darkest prison like our brothers and sisters in the flesh , but we are under house arrest . Our adversary lets us out from time to time , to visit other houses , but we rarely enter with power and authority into the heart of the city . When I was a boy I belonged to a small Christian sect that was my whole world .
Idiom: go straight (used idiomatically: no)
So you have to get a man in to line them up for you before you put them in . Once in , and pain subsiding , they very deliberately move around so that the two lines are elsewhere — and what you are reading looks like basic Sanskrit . In America recently , I wore the lenses for a ladies ' luncheon , then went straight to the theatre for the show , and did make - up , hair and costume in record time . As I took my place in the darkened centre stage for the opening of the first act , and the lights slowly came up , I saw a sight which I 've never seen before , a sight which chilled me to the marrow and froze me to the spot . The audience .
Idiom: anything goes (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ I just do n't understand how planes work or what keeps them up there . I do n't know why I 'm so scared . I suppose because one is so helpless , there 's nothing you can do if anything goes wrong and it 's an awful long way down . ‘ I think all the businessmen sitting around me must think I am mad . But it is my way of getting out of a sticky situation .
Idiom: on the cards (used idiomatically: yes)
A rejuvenated Barbara Cartland with characters from her slushy novels . Movie director Michael Winner 's card — Lia Williams in a sequence from his new film , Dirty Weekend — displays his twin passions of movies and younger women . Tramp nightclub owner Johnny Gold lives out a housewives ' fantasy in the arms of the exotic Chippendale hunks on his camp Christmas card . Christmas has definitely gone to the dogs — at least in novelist Jilly Cooper 's latest bedroom scene . So tacky in tartan , scarlet and gold — do we mean Derek and Ellen Jameson ?
Idiom: one and the same (used idiomatically: yes)
Roland wondered if there were other diaries . He put little slips of paper in the entries that made up his fragile narrative or non - narrative . There was no evidence to connect the Prowler with the letter - writer , or the letter - writer with Randolph Henry Ash , and yet he felt a powerful conviction that all three were one and the same . If they were , would not Blanche have said so ? He must ask Maud Bailey about the Prowler , yet how could he do so without coming clean in some way — about his own interest in the matter ?
Idiom: in someone's pocket (used idiomatically: yes)
Teacher — What did Sir Francis Drake say to his men before sailing off to defeat the Spanish Armada ? Pupil — Umm … all aboard ! Teacher — If I put ten pound coins in my left trouser pocket and twenty pound coins in my right trouser pocket and fifty ten pence pieces in my back pocket , what would I end up with ? Pupil — Your trousers round your ankles , sir ! It was the night of the school disco and a group of parents were standing in the corner as the kids enjoyed themselves on the dance floor .
Idiom: sit tight (used idiomatically: yes)
Ferreting has been perfected to the point where it does a thorough job . The ferrets force the rabbits to abandon their homes and bolt to the surface , where they can be killed by a number of methods . Or the rabbits sit tight underground as they become cornered by the ferrets . They are then either killed by the ferrets or are subsequently dug out alive . A team of ferrets should number an absolute minimum of two and that is only sufficient if you pursue the sport only infrequently .
Idiom: off the wall (used idiomatically: no)
‘ Be quiet!’ I said flinging a pillow at his gaping maw . He flung it back , missed me and knocked a motto off the wall . ‘ East , west , home 's best , ’’ Otley read . ‘ Thatsh a bloody lie!’
Idiom: up in the air (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ Charles Wood and I were not aware of the problems when we wrote the scene,’ he recalled . ‘ Michael was on a dock , fully dressed in tweed jacket , tie , trousers and hush - puppies , and had to put on a pair of water skis , be pulled off the dock into the water , by a rope attached to a motorboat that roared past , and ski away . Normally when you start water - skiing , you are lying in the water with your skis up in the air and the boat goes slowly away and you slowly come up , but this was like being catapulted into the water . ‘ We went to one of those old gravel pits where they do waterskiing . I think it was the head of the British water - skiing team who ran the camp and got us the boats and the equipment .
Idiom: feel the pinch (used idiomatically: yes)
Computone , which spent the last year re - organising , has , in a further ' belt tightening ' effort , recently cut 20 % of its 138 strong workforce . The redundancies were , the company says , incurred largely by its manufacturing operations , which it is currently scaling down and moving out to a smaller site in Alabama . Feeling the pinch , Computone also revealed that it has abandoned four of its add - on products from its flagship Intelliport and distributed cluster control line . ' We 're just getting rid of some dead wood , ' explained a Computone official . Over in the Specialix camp , founder and vice president of research , John Pettitt , has left to start up his own business — but not , Specialix claims , as a competitor .
Idiom: go to town (used idiomatically: yes)
JOHN GORMAN / Manager Colin Calderwood , the man who skippered the Robins to their Wembley triumph last season , but joined Tottenham Hotspur soon after , has been valued by an independent transfer tribunal at 1 and a quarter million pounds . About half that money will go to Mansfield Town , under a deal that Swindon 's then manager Lou Macari agreed with them when he bought Calderwood 8 years ago . But Swindon are satisfied with the outcome . Today 's result is in marked contrast to the Glenn Hoddle tribunal last month .
Idiom: blow someone's mind (used idiomatically: yes)
What would you be spending it on ? Because you see there was none of that exploration and it 's just those nice easy open question to get me to start enjoy spending my , my er retirement . Erm so I c I could n't buy any of what you were telling me and it 's all like a , it was all a smokescreen I was putting up , the accountant , basically I , I was not erm buying anything er and the compressed funding was just blowing my mind because I could n't understa er it was basically giving me an easy option to say I do n't need to do anything cos I can compress my funding at forty five wo n't I , when my business has taken off . It was like you know , you were digging a hole and er it was , it was making it very difficult for me to want to buy you see ? Mhm .
Idiom: on the blink (used idiomatically: yes)
Ooh , I thought I 'd got someone else to give me some money ! Do you know what they 've got on next week or not ? has gone on the blink again ! Oh no ! And you ca n't just go and buy one can you ?
Idiom: join the club (used idiomatically: yes)
For one thing , the Club minutes are missing from 1911 to 1920 , along with most of the Artisans ' records and those of the bondholders ' and all the sub - committees ! ( Only the Ladies ' records are complete , but not surprisingly they lack references to the Club 's business affairs and course developments , etc . ) . One regret was being unable to interview Mrs. Lorna Bloxam who joined the Club in 1910 . She died in September 1985 within days of my agreeing to do this research . On balance it has been an enjoyable task and a great privilege to undertake on behalf of the Club necessitating searches through some 4,000 documents , including old copies of the Standard back to 1895 .
Idiom: larger than life (used idiomatically: yes)
ACTOR Bill Maynard is not most people 's idea of a sex symbol . His wife thinks he 's sexy , but that 's because she does n't have to live with him , he says . The 64-year - old actor is probably best known for playing larger than life council labourer Selwyn Froggit on TV in the 1970s . Now he 's back in the limelight again playing wrinkly wide - boy Greengrass with ex - Eastenders star Nick Berry in the country cop drama Heartbeat ( ITV 8 pm Sundays ) . Crusty Bill boasts he 's on a spicy vegetarian diet to keep his strength up for love .
Idiom: follow suit (used idiomatically: yes)
But today the square was unusually quiet . Anyone who could do so had already left the city for the comparative cool of the country . She would be glad when they themselves followed suit . ‘ We must return home,’ she told Anna when they had made the daisy chain and hung it around the little girl 's neck . ‘ But since you 've been so good , you shall have your ice - cream!’
Idiom: seen better days (used idiomatically: yes)
I forgot all about donating and the transfusion service lost track of me as I moved from house to house over the years , until the other day when the subject came up in the office . So , with a quick flush of guilt for not going in 5 years , I trundled off to downtown Canterbury — quite a way downtown it was too , past Mr Careys bungalow and all the tacky tourist shops . I was surprised how things had changed — as I walked in I was given a big plastic number 33 ( shame I did n't turn up later as I could have stolen the number 38 to replace my house number which has seen better days ) and was given a list of reasons not to give blood . After reading the list and being thankful I had n't had sex with any African women ( amongst other things ) I signed the declaration and had the blood tests for Anaemia and other nasties . The thumb prick had become a finger prick over the years and was the only bit which mildly hurt .
Idiom: get up someone's nose (used idiomatically: yes)
Rhetorically and strategically , the war was in full swing before crack was identified as the principal enemy . ( As for the war metaphor itself , that began to appear not long after the first world war stopped . ) There are certainly pretty aperçus to be found , such as the observation that men objected to women smoking in public because one smokes for oneself : it was the display of female narcissism ( that got up their noses . In the end , though , the verdict on Crack Wars depends not on its insights , but whether you like the style . It is decadent literature , intoxicated with its own rarefication and artifice , its theatrical élitim mand its lofty decination inationto oblige .
Idiom: in the sticks (used idiomatically: no)
She looked natural , in time . Two years later , when the scandal peaked and middle - aged mobs shouted abuse at her as she sped away in large cars , it seemed less outraged morality they were proclaiming than outrage at being left behind in the 1950s . She too became a victim , but to many of the young , observing from out in the sticks , far even from the world of CND , she was a victor . In a collision between the furtive sex of the old order and the impression of freer sex of the young , the Tories like the doomed professor in The Blue Angel three decades earlier had come off worse . The Tories did it , but did n't want to talk about it .
Idiom: out of sight (used idiomatically: yes)
They wandered on up the hillside . On the flatter stretches they talked and laughed : where the path rose more steeply they lapsed into silence , each lost in her own thoughts . Somewhere out of sight , cicadas filled the air with their high - pitched whirring and , in the distance , a woodpecker shrieked as it swooped from tree to tree in a flash of yellow , green and red . The first strawberry patch was in a clearing where the undergrowth was thick and leafy . As they began to gather the berries , eating the sweetest , darkest red ones , and putting the rest into their baskets to take home , the sun came out .
Idiom: tell tales (used idiomatically: no)
Ryders were noted for their meticulous preparation of cattle food . He went over the sick calf with stethoscope and thermometer , digging his fingers into the hairy abdominal wall , staring impassively at the calf 's face to note its reaction . He did the same with my patient of yesterday whose glaring eyes and cold extremities told their grim tale . Then he gave the calves almost the same treatment as I had and we left . He was silent for the first half mile , then he beat the wheel suddenly with one hand .
Idiom: play games (used idiomatically: yes)
Yes , well yes surely make that or otherwise you , if you give up everything . Yeah , even if it 's only ten minutes a day , at least it 's something . Oh yes , yes , I think we all need , even , even if , plain , life is full of playing games and the game can help you get through the day sometimes . That 's right . So , right let 's hear the right hand .
Idiom: do someone proud (used idiomatically: yes)
Scots unchanged for Triple Crown showdown By Graham Law SCOTLAND will bid to lift their third Triple Crown in nine years when they travel to Twickenham on Saturday week with the same line - up which did them proud in the 20 - 0 victory over Wales . Thus , assuming all goes well in this weekend 's national league games , Scotland will have used a mere 16 players during the course of the campaign , Peter Wright 's introduction for the injured Alan Watt proving the only alteration over the four games . The same number of players were utilised during the 1990 Grand Slam and for all the flak to which they have been subjected , such consistency reflects creditably on the selectors .
Idiom: pour cold water on (used idiomatically: yes)
But other accounts of Summerchild 's death must have been appearing in the newspapers somewhere , because a little further on there is another cutting from The Times . This one is dated two days later , June 27th . It is from page one , at least seven column - inches long , and it is pouring cold water on reports of a more sensational nature . ‘ Whitehall body : ‘ no spy link’ , says the headline , and beneath it , ‘ From our Political Staff’ . Reports that Mr Stephen Summerchild , the Civil Servant whose body was found in Whitehall earlier this week , had connections with espionage were being firmly discounted at Westminster yesterday .
Idiom: play games (used idiomatically: yes)
Er to buy are we gon na play a game ? No Not at the minute , no
Idiom: call the shots (used idiomatically: no)
In comparison with literature , as Christine Gledhill has observed , the appeal of the cinema lies exactly in the offer of an escape from language into ' the pleasure of an achieved unity between subject and reality ' . ( Gledhill 1984 , p.31 ) Film structures our fantasies ( entertainment or escapism ) as well as our realities ( film as documentary ' evidence ' or information ) and each function in itself is ample reason why feminists should have a keen interest in the cinema . Women Call the Shots in providing the viewing public with a wealth of women 's cinema — fiction and documentary , shorts and features , art - house and mainstream — was a welcome response to this interest . Trying to present that impossible chimera , ' a balanced view ' , the series in fact reflected the existing power relations in the industry by showing predominantly White , Western , heterosexual films , but clearly an effort was made to complete the picture with some lesbian films and with work ( especially documentaries and shorts ) from outside the familiar Eurocentric tradition . Tokenism , as this ' women 's season ' showed , can be useful in that as well as making a gesture towards ' minority'interest it at the same time betokened the absence of women 's film on television which it sought to undo .
Idiom: left and right (used idiomatically: no)
The party 's convention in March paid special tribute to its founder , Roberto d'Aubuisson , the man most closely associated with the death squads that killed thousands of people during the civil war , who himself died of cancer last year . The same month , a United Nations commission , set up as part of the peace agreement , said that it was d'Aubuisson who had arranged the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980 . The commission , which accused both sides of atrocities , has been criticised from left and right . But it laid the worst crimes at the door of the army , and recommended the dismissal of 40 serving officers . The army has flatly rejected these findings .