Gooogr/pie_idioms huggingface dataset:
Idiom: pull a face (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ Oh no , I did n't ; it was up to you . I told you at the time to stick out and then she would have to get a housekeeper in . But then , of course’— she pulled a face now —‘I had n't taken your husband into account , had , I ? nor his charm or his wiliness . Anyway , do n't let us get back on to that . Now I 'm not going into Mother tonight ; a medical lesson would just finish me .
Idiom: in the club (used idiomatically: no)
Ramesh was punched in the face , and the premises damaged . From then until the middle of August , there were incidents at least once a week . On several occasions , people who had been drinking in the Sparrow Farm tenants ' association club opposite the shop left the club and attacked the Ks , both inside the off - licence and , sometimes , as they left after closing for the night . At least four people have been charged with offences in relation to the events of July and August . The last straw came on August 17 .
Idiom: come to grief (used idiomatically: yes)
By 1920 the English Channel Tunnel Company 's scheme for a rail tunnel between Shakespeare Cliff and Sangatte was at an advanced stage of development and had attracted the support of MPs , businessmen and engineers who saw it as a major work of postwar reconstruction which would provide badly needed employment at a time of recession . Churchill , as Secretary of State for War , saw no need to veto a tunnel on military grounds and the Home Ports Defence Committee concluded that it could be defended from attack , albeit at high cost . However , the scheme came to grief because of the entrenched opposition of Cabinet Secretary , Sir Maurice Hankey , who believed a tunnel to be a major threat to national security . The defence argument put paid to yet another proposal in 1924 but in 1929 the Labour Government set up a Committee of Inquiry which concluded that a ‘ double barrelled’ rail tunnel could probably be built although it would be necessary to drive a pilot tunnel to demonstrate its feasibility beyond doubt . However , in 1930 a White Paper ruled against the project on the grounds that the technical feasibility and economic benefits were too uncertain to justify the heavy expenditure needed to defend a tunnel in time of war .
Idiom: in the sticks (used idiomatically: yes)
And the target is going to be business people , whether local or foreign,’ says Ms Van Housen . DONs are mainly for big cities , and those are not an ideal locale for every enterprise ; manufacturing plants , for example , are clearly better sited where land is more plentiful . To get round the problems of securing a satisfactory comms link out in the sticks , multinationals are acquiring VSAT links , provided by the local PTT or anyone else that can obtain licensing . VSAT — very small aperture terminal — is a technology that enables satellite communications to be set up relatively cheaply and easily . It can be used to transmit computer data to and from sites where conventional lines are not available .
Idiom: out of the loop (used idiomatically: yes)
I ' ve been out of the loop for a while . Can you bring me up to speed ?
Idiom: rock the boat (used idiomatically: yes)
But Labour 's ranks still embrace Bernie Grant , of Tottenham , who called the party ‘ white fascists’ , and Paul Boateng , once the GLC 's notorious anti - police campaigner , now a Treasury spokesman . And those like Dave Nellist and Terry Field , who were dropped for their Militant views , are standing as Independent Socialists , sensing that in a hung Parliament re - recruitment is on the cards . Candidates from Labour 's Left still within the party have been careful not to rock the boat . Len Snow , Boateng 's agent says : ‘ His principles have n't changed — he has just adapted them to the ' 90s.’ Tony Benn 's agent , Tom Vallins , says Benn has fought on the party manifesto ‘ though it may not represent all his own individual opinions’ .
Idiom: brass neck (used idiomatically: no)
It must be important for her to have driven all the way up north and bluff her way into his house . He glanced up at her almost respectfully as he poured himself some tea . If she had the nerve , the sheer bloody brass neck , to do that , then maybe he 'd give her a few minutes . Betty put a plate of fried eggs and bacon in front of the trainer . ‘ Was there something else?’
Idiom: drink like a fish (used idiomatically: yes)
In fact he was not far from being sick . What was the matter with him ? he thought . He was drinking like a fish , and had been for weeks . And now he was lurching about his flat with innocent children asleep in their beds , and he had lied to Helga . He had never done that before in all their life together .
Idiom: make history (used idiomatically: yes)
Then a bomb blast devastated the theatre and wiped away her smile of anticipation . Before that , Jenny — long - time lover of top film producer Michael Winner — had talked enthusiastically about her joy at bringing the Forties play here . Present Laughter would have made theatre history as the first production to go from Belfast into the West End . Such has been the success of the piece on a short provincial tour , that it has been snapped up by The Globe in the centre of London 's theatreland . It plays Brighton the week after next , then Sheffield and after that heads straight to London to give Jenny her West End debut .
Idiom: touch a nerve (used idiomatically: yes)
Universal Privatization Plans to redistribute part of the capital gains resulting from the privatization programme of the Thatcher Governments should also form an integral part of a strategy for sharing wealth . The privatization of industries , ranging from Britoil to British Gas , British Telecom and British Steel , has been a great success , partly because they have touched a public nerve , but also because the share issues have usually been made at below market value . Investors have made considerable capital gains . Labour 's 1987 election policy was to convert the privatized shares into government bonds with a set rate of interest .
Idiom: few and far between (used idiomatically: yes)
Liam Herbert , one of the shortest players on the pitch , rose above the defenders and placed a fine header past keeper Duncan Green to make it one nil . The visitors might have replied almost immediately when Mark Stepney rounded the defence but put his shot wide . As the game settled down , both sides struggled to get out of mid - field on a very heavy pitch , and clear chances were few and far between . Worse was to come though for Horsham as following a fifty fifty challenge on the edge of the Abingdon area , striker Paul Walker injured himself and had to be stretchered off . In the twenty seventh minute , Abingdon scored their second when Darren Hickey played an excellent ball through to Aries and Aries lobbed it over the advancing keeper into the back of the net with Kevin Connelly following up to make certain .
Idiom: to the hilt (used idiomatically: yes)
There , then . Do my zip.’ Karen could never surely tell when Jessica was teasing her , and when Jessica found a good one she played it to the hilt . As Karen 's lust for certainty increased , she threw in tantalising little snippets , altering some of the details from time to time . They had shopped round Belfast and she had teased her with the idea that this Parr was very rich , they had gone by train to Dublin and she had claimed he was ‘ hand in glove’ with government circles there .
Idiom: come to a head (used idiomatically: yes)
At times this was crystal clear . At others , she despised herself for being selfish , even wicked , for not being able to help people who needed her support so much . Her discontent came to a head with the beginning of spring . During the winter there had been near - continual snow and rain , then in late March there was a week of mad blustering winds , with racing cloud and fitful sun . ‘ March showers bring April flowers,’ Carolyn recited to herself .
Idiom: see the elephant (used idiomatically: yes)
Child and Douglas - Hamilton were in Sumatra to see if that was feasible . But first we decided to try to see the elephants . Neither Child nor Douglas - Hamilton ( nor I ) had ever seen Asian elephants in the wild . We split up , with members of the task force , to look for the elephants , each small group of searchers gathering a large following from the children of the transmigrasi along the way . At the end of the day Child and I were cursing our luck and Douglas Hamilton was waxing lyrical about the placidity of the beasts , who had allowed him to come within six yards of them .
Idiom: fall short (used idiomatically: yes)
In approximate terms the picture may be sketched as shown in Table 1.1 . In the process of definition the subdivisions of the gentry are shown to have been as numerous as those of the peerage ( which for the present purpose need not be set out in detail ) , and noticeably more complex . Knights naturally took precedence as the leading members of the class , and there is no difficulty about demonstrating that they were also the richest despite the existence of a good many whose incomes fell far short of £ 200 . The clear inference must be that the average knight was expected to have at least the £ 120 a year postulated by Smith , and indeed the median of twenty - three in Buckinghamshire , Suffolk and Sussex in 1524–5 lay between £ 120 and £ 160 , while nationally the median of eighteen feodary surveys works out at £ 204 . In the same counties , with the addition of Cornwall and Rutland , the median for eighty - five esquires was about £ 60 compared with £ 80 from 124 feodary surveys ; several men were worth upwards of £ 200 and clearly correspond with the first group of gentlemen in the table .
Idiom: under a cloud (used idiomatically: yes)
John Lennon and Yoko allowed the world 's media into their hotel suite in Amsterdam for their bed - in , a honeymoon to epitomize the institution of love not war . Mick Jagger put on a charming little Greek skirt and gave a free performance to thousands in London 's Hyde Park , while Bob Dylan headed down to the Isle of Wight for a three - day festival of dope , sex and rock ' n ' roll attended by 150,000 fans . It was the wildest party Britain had seen , and the media had a field day with a revelling of nude and painted bodies , cavorting to fine music under a dense cloud of cannabis smoke and punctuated by the occasional screams of an acid drop gone wrong . For those in the middle of these events , there was in addition to the tension and the menace , a certain air of unreality ; this raises the part played by drugs , not merely in the emergence of a forceful counter - culture , but in the attitudes of plain straightforward young people to whom any kind of illicit substance a couple of years earlier would have been a complete mystery . Drugs provided the wherewithal for the actual suspension of reality — a route so desperately sought , for instance , by those young men wearing American uniforms in that far - off land of Vietnam .
Idiom: at the end of the day (used idiomatically: yes)
The unique , exclusive advantages of the Two - On - One - Off combination plan , and its original elements , make all the difference between past failure and future success for many . During the first two weeks on the Scarsdale Medical Diet , you will be delighted and encouraged by rapid weight loss , actually seeing on the scale that pounds are dropping off day by day ( not that discouraging pound or two a week ) . Furthermore , although you are losing weight without hunger , feeling better and enjoying increased energy and vigour , you look forward to more food freedom at the end of the fourteen days … One of my patients said to me recently about the Scarsdale Two - On - One - Off combination , ' Dr Tarnower , this is the ultimate lifetime program . I may have other problems one of these days , but overweight is never again going to be one of them ' …
Idiom: have an eye for (used idiomatically: yes)
Archaeological Museum of Istanbul . In our annual reports in Dumbarton Oaks Papers we have shown something of the extraordinary nature of the church and its decoration and shed much new light on the period immediately before Justinian . A bizarre by - product has been the recognition of various richly decorated fragments of the church in places as far afield as Barcelona , Venice , Aquileia , and even Vienna , presumably carried off to the West as loot after 1204 , by members of the Fourth Crusade who evidently had an eye for exotic sculpture . ( The full account of the excavations is to be published next year by Princeton University Press . ) Our excavation of the foundations showed that the church had been a large one , just under 52 metres ( 168 feet ) square .
Idiom: pull out all the stops (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ If Halifax come back with a decent offer we 'll consider it . David is listed at £ 120,000 but you have to be flexible.’ Halifax are pulling out all the stops to try to strengthen their squad and want a sponsor to help fund a deal for Aussie Test forward Bob Lindner . Salford face strong competition from an un - named Yorkshire club in their bid to sign Leeds former All Black star John Gallagher . The stumbling block to any deal is a cash settlement for the remainder of Gallagher 's contract , worth a reported £ 400,000 when he signed for Leeds in the summer of 1990 .
Idiom: make a go of (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ Well?’ ‘ There 's a cottage with three acres going on the Helston road . I know about market gardening and I could make a go of that . Vegetables for the health shop market , organically grown — that sort of thing.’ He looked dubiously at Kersey as though he feared the very idea might provoke him to violence .
Idiom: in the fast lane (used idiomatically: yes)
The most dramatic entry is that of the poor rabbit . ‘ Even adults sometimes overestimate their capacity to avoid danger,’ writes Knutson , ‘ and find themselves half - an - inch high and roughly rectangular.’ His epitaph is equally phlegmatic : ‘ Death in the fast lane is a way of life for many rabbits.’ Peterborough : Star - struck ASTRONAUTS have saved an example of Stalinist nomenclature : the Kirov .
Idiom: make history (used idiomatically: yes)
( These ideas of Gramsci 's have been notably developed and applied to recent criminal justice policy by Stuart Hall , whose account of ' law and order ideology ' we discussed in Chapter 1 . ) There is much more to Gramsci than this : for example , Marxist theory is indebted to his pioneering use of concepts such as ' praxis ' , ' civil society ' , ' class fractions ' and the ' historical bloc'and his analysis of the nature , role and composition of the state in class societies . Perhaps above all , Gramsci injected a sense of humanism into Marxism : for him , history was made by human beings . He believed that socialism would not come about as the inevitable result of impersonal laws of economic development but would have to be built by active human beings working purposively and creatively . However , it is in his treatment of ideology that Gramsci 's legacy has been most pervasive and where he is the unmistakable precursor of all the Marxist and post - Marxist theorists we now proceed to discuss .
Idiom: have been around (used idiomatically: yes)
We were soon into French airspace and decided to climb to 6000 feet . The climb rate dropped off noticeably as we reached maximum manifold height for the day and the lack of turbo - charging showed . Our true airspeed at 1500–2000 feet had been around 145 knots at 2200 rpm and 24’ manifold with a fuel flow of 11 gallons per hour . When we reached 6000 feet manifold pressure had fallen to around 23’ but our true airspeed had increased to around 155 knots at 10–10.5 gallons per hour . As predicted , we did catch up the cold front , refiled IFR and had to climb even further .
Idiom: catch someone's eye (used idiomatically: yes)
' I should n't let it worry you , ' said Zimmerman , with rather misplaced heartiness . ' The wife and I have had our ups and downs over the years too , like all married folk , and the children , well , quite a handful in some ways … take our eldest for example … Ah well , ' he continued unhappily , having caught his wife 's eye , ' least said soonest mended , I dare say . ' There followed an awkward silence , finally broken by Fräulein Müller blurting out , ' I 've written to her , you know . Two letters addressed to the theatre , but no reply .
Idiom: give and take (used idiomatically: no)
The W assumed was a neutral one , ie reflecting a public or common viewpoint . The first-resolution conceptual model shown in Fig 11.5 was then constructed from this root definition . Consideration was then given to the requirements of the formal systems model , eg the relationships between the system components ( taken in this case to be information flows ) , the resources needed for the system to operate , and how the system would be regulated and controlled . At this high level , it was only possible to make a broad assessment of these requirements , and further ideas were developed as the study progressed to lower levels of detail . Each sub-system of the model was given a decimal code so that an audit trail could be established for the subsequent detailed analysis .
Idiom: play games (used idiomatically: no)
The great dead have framed our culture : our culture shapes our political life ; therefore the great dead have shaped our political life . If one wants to explore the possibilities of Europe 's political future , one needs therefore to examine the development of European culture . I have tried to focus such an examination by playing the parlour game of making a list of the 50 Europeans who have most influenced the consciousness of Europe in the last 1,000 years . Such a proceeding is , of course , arbitrary to the point of being ridiculous . I have excluded from my list politicians as such — hence the absence of Napoleon — but have allowed in Lenin and Hitler because they largely invented their own ideologies .
Idiom: break even (used idiomatically: yes)
The paper gave fuel to its detractors last week when it named the woman who has accused Edward Kennedy 's nephew of raping her in Palm Beach at Easter . Naming rape victims without their permission is thought to be a bad thing . And the Times was not even mould - breaking . It named the woman because NBC News had done so the day before . Typical , say the critics , of a paper that pretends to lead , but actually follows .
Idiom: nine times out of ten (used idiomatically: yes)
I mean I 've got plenty of black , so mustard and black whatever , whatever , cerise and black or something , that 's daft really you know It 's very silly I mean nine times out of ten we erm , we just go over there and buy what 's there Yeah regardless when we come back well what are you going to make with it ?
Idiom: go to town (used idiomatically: yes)
Declan Bonner was not in the Donegal line - up — he was far too busy running the show in a club championship match . He turned out for Na Rossa against Convoy and scored an incredible 2–11 within the space of thirty five minutes . He had been held scoreless for the first twenty - five minutes of the game but certainly went to town afterwards ! Help groups warn of crisis over fuel tax VOLUNTARY groups in the province today warned they would be flooded with desperate demands for help from people forced into cash crises by the Government 's plans to impose a VAT levy on domestic fuel .
Idiom: dead and buried (used idiomatically: yes)
Sooner or later , if she ever got her reason back , she would realise that her daughter had resigned from this German job six weeks before the accident , that she had n't breathed a word to her aunt or her friends about the possibility of her returning to Europe . The girl 's body had been identified by her aunt , Mrs. Browne . She was dead and buried . ‘ I expect she is,’ he said soothingly . ‘ No doubt she is .
Idiom: turn heads (used idiomatically: yes)
It was Dinah , with her arms full of packages ; she had just come out of a cab . ' Paul , carry some of these for me ; they would have delivered them , but I wanted them for tonight . ' She turned her head and laughed ; then noticed his state . ' What is the matter ? ' she asked , as he took the packages . ' I will tell you when we are inside , ' he replied .
Idiom: lend an ear (used idiomatically: yes)
Friends , Romans , countrymen , lend me your ears ; I come to bury Caesar , not to praise him .
Idiom: on the trot (used idiomatically: yes)
Formby now stand on the verge of a top - six place in Division Two . Stantondale 4 Westhoughton Town 2 : A Paul Diamond double strike , the second of which was a delightful chip , helped Second Division leaders Dale to their fourth win on the trot . Second - to - bottom Westhoughton were better than their position suggests , but they were no match for a hungry outfit , who sealed the win thanks to further strikes by Graham Dodd and a Mark Wilson penalty . Burscough 2 Clitheroe 1 :
Idiom: weather the storm (used idiomatically: yes)
pilot coat , another term for pea - coat . pilot … to weather the storm , no . ‘ The Pilot that Weathered the Storm’ was the title of a verse - tribute to the Prime Minister William Pitt written by George Canning in 1802 . BH 40;DS 61 .
Idiom: touch wood (used idiomatically: yes)
Oh yes , it would n't surprise me at all . . I 'm not so sure , touch wood . . .
Idiom: one of those things (used idiomatically: yes)
Or put it in a left - luggage compartment somewhere.’ ‘ Suppose it 's cursed!’ wailed Maisie . ‘ Suppose it 's one of those things that follows you round — like Tutankhamun 's mummy.’ He had never confided any of his suspicions about being followed to Mr Malik . He would go and see him as soon as they got back to school and tell him everything that had happened since he had come to the school .
Idiom: hold the line (used idiomatically: yes)
But the Conservatives will have to take stock of the situation in Scotland after the election dust has settled . The Scottish Nationalists suffered a further setback when one of their leading figures , Mr James Sillars , was ousted from Glasgow Govan , which he had won at a by - election . While the Tories were holding the line in the South , there was gloomier news in the North . Pendle , the Lancashire marginal where the poll tax was a major issue in the campaign , fell to Labour with a five per cent swing . Neighbouring Hyndburn was also taken by Labour .
Idiom: on the rocks (used idiomatically: yes)
' It is important to know of it if you are to understand our lore , though I think you already know more of it than you realize … But I must first finish the tale of how I came to be here . ' We came to a lonely place where I could hear the sea crashing on rocks near by . It was a house , warm and comfortable . There were cages too for animals , but different from the ones here .
Idiom: shipshape and Bristol fashion (used idiomatically: yes)
In state medicine he had observed that for chronic diseases like cancer , the responses to the repair syndrome were not good and decided that the most important factors causing such diseases were psychological and nutritional . But to me as I struggled with his detoxifying diet , he was a disembodied , stern sounding voice , a god who had handed down the law . These next few pages are the reactions of one who went to the Centre , came away evangelical and kept saying to himself , ‘ All shipshape and Bristol fashion’ , only to fall from the crest into the deepest trough , but thankfully to climb up again to a sensible plateau and finally discover that he had been fortified in more ways than he had expected . But first there was the assimilation of my new , and in psychological terms , bewildering home . NANCY
Idiom: play games (used idiomatically: yes)
5 . Any Other Business . There is a suspicion that some RBG equipment is being used for playing computer games within the working hours of some staff . CW evaluating network monitoring software , and would remind staff of the policy on unauthorised software use . Three Amstrad PCs , with printers , had been received from SOAFD .