Gooogr/pie_idioms huggingface dataset:
Idiom: bear in mind (used idiomatically: yes)
I meant the hon . Gentleman , but he almost became my hon . Friend because of his grudging acceptance of the principle of testing . It is certainly true , as he says , that tests for seven - year - olds are a shorthand way of describing the progress of those at a particular stage . Some of them have spent more terms in schools than others — which must be borne in mind when looking at the position of an individual pupil — but all those factors even out in the local authorities . For example , the performance of the hon . Gentleman 's authority , Sheffield , was markedly inferior to that of Rotherham , although the discrepancies of the sort that he described do not exist in those two authorities . Mrs. Maureen Hicks
Idiom: slippery slope (used idiomatically: yes)
One is the difficulty of explaining Hastings ' apparent volte - face . Most authors who accept the conspiracy also accept Vergil 's argument that Hastings was alienated by the manner in which Gloucester made himself protector . This then presents the entire period from May to mid June as a slippery slope down which Gloucester plunged , his attempts to achieve security committing him to progressively more desperate measures . But Vergil is here , as argued above , the victim of his own telescoped chronology . It is clear that if Hastings did become disenchanted with his erstwhile ally , the split did not develop until later and therefore , presumably , for other reasons .
Idiom: out of order (used idiomatically: yes)
Three people died . Other high - rise blocks are still being pulled down . The image of an unfortunate resident having to climb 20 flights of stairs because the lift is out of order is now a common one . Local authority building reached its peak in the 1970s . Between 1971 and 1980 111,000 new council homes were built every year .
Idiom: fit the bill (used idiomatically: yes)
Branches of timber merchants , such as W H Newson , stock a range of hardwood mouldings for you to put up yourself . If you want to use wallpaper , go for a design with layers of pattern . A floral design with a Regency stripe background , for example , fits the bill perfectly . You 'll find examples of these in Sanderson , Warner Fabrics and G P & J Baker sample books . Subdued colours are an important part of the romantic look .
Idiom: hit the ceiling (used idiomatically: no)
Overt sex or race discrimination is illegal . But the impediments are often so subtle that they fall foul of no law . And few of the people who hit the glass ceiling are inclined to go through the additional pain of a complaint to the government or a court case . This is why Mrs Dole got the Labour Department to look at the personnel records of nine big companies around the country . The results should appear in March .
Idiom: home and dry (used idiomatically: no)
MID - ULSTER LEAGUE TWO - GOAL Billy McConnell took on the role of super sub at Olympia yesterday as Holywood dramatically overturned a 2–1 deficit to move within sight of the Harp Senior League title with a 6–2 hammering of Annadale . The former international , plagued by injury this season , was on the pitch for just 18 minutes but by the time he returned to the bench Holywood were home and dry . After Richard Eaton had cancelled out a second minute opener from Kenny Morris on 20 minutes , John Stephens shot Annadale into the lead with a superb finish to two minutes into the second period . Norman Crawford then pulled off a master stroke , introducing McConnell , and he set up Mark Burns for a short corner strike in the 46th minute before adding two goals himself in the space of five minutes to leave Holywood 4–2 ahead .
Idiom: once in a while (used idiomatically: yes)
Another picture on Page 2 . Leicester City 0 Tranmere Rovers 1 EVERY once in a while Tranmere produce a performance which makes nonsense of their reputation for being uneasy travellers . They did it at Derby County a year ago and turned up another at Filbert Street on Saturday . They looked a class act and for once came away with a result to match .
Idiom: out of your mind (used idiomatically: no)
I knew the Swiss Ambassador , who had a country residence where it was possible to ride and relax . But the conditions in Berlin itself became worse and worse . In the end you had to try to put things that you saw out of your mind or else you would go mad . RO You eventually managed to get a flight to Milan , where you stayed in hiding , and then you spent some time near Lake Como ?
Idiom: rank and file (used idiomatically: yes)
The ensuing struggle involved almost every aspect of the continuing battles fought by Irish communities against multinationals , plus some less usual elements , specifically the workers ' struggle , which appeared only in this fight . The affair was in some ways summed up by photographs that appeared in the media in June 1978 of gardai forcing their way past a picket of women and children to allow the American multinational to dump its deadly waste . The struggle involved some 18 opposition groups in all , most arms of the state — the IDA , IIRS , local authorities , An Bord Pleanala , both ordinary , decent and political police — politicians , trade unions , international experts and rank and file workers . It was unquestionably a major landmark in Irish anti - toxic struggles . Having lost the opportunity to oppose the factory itself , local opposition first focused on the factory 's dumping plans .
Idiom: move mountains (used idiomatically: yes)
You should n't take all the blame . My grandson is n't a saint . Besides , I have great faith in the power of love to move mountains . Things will turn out for the best,’ he added cryptically . She just had to smile at his optimism , even if she did n't share it .
Idiom: lay an egg (used idiomatically: yes)
Goldfish , for instance , lay hundreds of eggs at a time , but give them no parental care at all . In the wild most of the eggs or fry of this type of spawner are eaten , but just enough make it to adulthood to keep the population steady . Other fish with parental care , like pit - spawning cichlids , or bubble - nesters , lay more eggs than egg scatterers , but fewer than mouthbrooders . Livebearers usually have small broods , too , as the fry are quite well - developed , and are more able to fend for themselves than eggs or newly hatched egglayers . Open - sea fish , like Cod , lay several million eggs each breeding season , but they are left to drift in the plankton , where almost all are eaten by various small creatures .
Idiom: with a vengeance (used idiomatically: yes)
It was all desperate , delaying stuff . Developments since the late 1960s changed things . Constitutional fundamentals have been opened up with a vengeance . Entry into the EC challenged parliamentary sovereignty ; the growth of direct action and extra - parliamentary politics in Northern Ireland and on the mainland challenged the rule of law and the stability of the liberal - democratic state ; the ups - and - downs of nationalism in Wales and Scotland challenged the unitary state and threatened the break - up of Britain ; the use of referenda [ popular and direct votes on issues]revealed the crumbling legitimacy attaching to the indirect democracy of voting for people to parliament ; the conventions underpinning cabinet government were buffeted by a trend to " open government " that weakened collective responsibility and Cabinet solidarity ; and developments within the Labour Party have had constitutional implications at the self - same time as the Liberals and SDP have sought to imprint themselves directly onto the British constitution with proposals for radical constitutional change including proportional representation . All these developments have made for confusion .
Idiom: go from strength to strength (used idiomatically: yes)
This year sees the centenary of Peter Rabbit and since Wedgwood already dominates this characterware market segment the company has added a special range of items to celebrate the first appearance of Beatrix Potter 's famous character . A new video featuring ' The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny ' — the first time Peter Rabbit has been animated — is included in two gift sets . The extensive range of Wedgwood jewellery has been complemented by the addition of fine bone china cameos and the collectability of Coalport figurines continues to go from strength to strength . This year 31 new studies in fine bone china and porcelain have been introduced . The new Coalport range has been further enhanced with a wide selection of new collector 's plates , giftware , cottages and florals .
Idiom: head over heels (used idiomatically: yes)
Those were words she 'd so desperately wanted to hear . ' Have you ? ' ' Head over heels . ' ' In love ? ' ' In love , ' he confirmed .
Idiom: make the cut (used idiomatically: no)
the lack of knowledge and understanding about the basis for allocation ; ( ii ) the perceived lack of rationality when making cuts ; ( ii ) the lack of a relationship between funding and pupil numbers in a subject ;
Idiom: hot air (used idiomatically: yes)
Is there a maximum height of working above which your policy does not operate ? Is demolition work covered ? How is your insurance affected if you use blow lamps or hot air guns ? If you are unable to answer any of these questions , perhaps it is time you considered your insurance requirements . When you are looking for insurance cover or considering the renewal of an existing policy the first thing you should consider is who to insure through .
Idiom: raise hell (used idiomatically: yes)
At the G M B Centenary Congress I spoke from the platform , seconding a document on Europe and I expressed my fears and hopes along with a lot of other delegates . Without the Social Chapter a lot of our hopes can not be fulfilled . Why did n't we start raising hell straight away after Maastricht ? I could weep with frustration when I go around seeing the conditions some of our people work in , the pittance they have paid , young people hung around on street corners with no job and no real training . We need the European Social Chapter to bring unscrupulous employers into light .
Idiom: into thin air (used idiomatically: no)
To Etienne , this could only be one person — the blanc who had threatened to betray him to the President in the conversation which Etienne now interpreted with the benefit of hindsight . Of course , there had been the event with the woman and that blue box , but if Etienne concentrated hard enough , he found that he was able to think that he 'd imagined it . At least , he reflected , his men would be thankful for an enemy whom they could see , and who would n't disappear into thin air . He himself would see what tricks the blanc had to save himself . It took only a couple of hours for the news to reach Washington DC .
Idiom: second nature (used idiomatically: yes)
Trust is no less true than fear , which comes to look like second nature yet is not ; and nor is dissolution , for the life 's continuous and one
Idiom: in business (used idiomatically: yes)
Any threat to press freedom came , not from Goldsmith , but from the law which allowed him to sue distributors of libel - prone magazines . If the law threatened press freedom , it was for Parliament , not the courts , to change it . In the five years since this judgment , Parliament has shown little interest , although the Labour Party has endorsed a proposal that those in the distribution business should be under a legal obligation to supply any publication requested by their customers — a reform which would require abolition of the rule that distributors can be held responsible for particular defamations of which they have no knowledge but which are nonetheless contained in libel - prone publications . Of course a well - heeled litigant would still be able to frighten booksellers and newsagents by notifying them of the alleged libel and threatening to join them in the action unless they withdrew the offending publication from sale . Robert Maxwell has deployed this tactic with considerable success to limit the circulation of several books about him to which he has taken exception .
Idiom: hot air (used idiomatically: yes)
MIKE DOLAN / Northampton RICHARD MOLD / Pilot At first light final checks are made to the hot air balloons for the start of the weekend festival . Slowly but surely the strange shapes begin to form . It 's the fourth time the Northampton Racecourse Park has hosted the event .
Idiom: get up someone's nose (used idiomatically: yes)
First I must apologise . I 'm not blaming them , but your mother and father thought it was a good idea , and foolishly I went along with them . I did n't realise it would get up your nose so quickly and so far . She sat on the bed . She drew her legs up underneath her , sat cross - legged on the duvet .
Idiom: point the finger (used idiomatically: yes)
The funny thing is no one knew what I was suffering from . It might have been a delayed reaction to the drugs I had been taking for an operation I 'd recently had on my foot , but this seemed unlikely . After much speculation we all started to point the finger at Dawn . I read about a kind of pneumonia owls can sometimes get , which humans , too , can catch . It 's a bit like psittacosis , the infectious disease parrots suffer from , which they can also pass on to humans .
Idiom: once and for all (used idiomatically: yes)
It 's a squad game and there is still enough ability at the club to do the business and win 90 per cent of their games . Many Leeds fans say the captaincy issue over Ellery Hanley and Garry Schofield is the main problem . Well if that 's the case it must be sorted out once and for all if the club is to go forward . Laughton is in a hole and the players as professional sportsmen have a responsibility to pull him out of it . Commitment
Idiom: fly the flag (used idiomatically: no)
Everything about it was grey - brown — houses , donkeys , sand and peasants ' heavy robes . Nor were there any colourful bazaars , though there was a market where I later bought fruit , vegetables , eggs and three small glasses , the sort from which Algerians drink their coffee . We called first at the post office , set in a square edged by trees , wells and the concrete facades of offices flying the red , white and green national flag . Mick went into the post office while Paddy walked along the square to the hotel . I used up the film in my two cameras before following Mick inside .
Idiom: till the cows come home (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ Ollie,’ Hakim said , ‘ if you get the hostages out , how many shish would you be prepared to eat?’ ( Clearly , as Frankfurt overdid the Chinese , Mainz overdid the kebabs . ) ‘ I 'd eat shish till the cows come home’ , North answered . Told by Secord that the Second Channel was going to solve the hostage problem , ‘ but we do n't know how,’ North replied , ‘ I do n't care how , right now.’ ‘ I do n't care how either’ said Secord .
Idiom: out of the box (used idiomatically: yes)
You still have no right to spend money that is n't yours . ' ' He 'll never miss it — he 's loaded . ' She pulled a shimmering gold evening dress out of a box and held it in front of her , gazing into the long mirror as if she loved the combination of woman and gown . As she did , Claudia realised , pity mixing with sorrow as she remembered that Dana had just parted with the man she loved . ' I 'm sorry about you and Garry ; it must be torture for you to lose him , but his wife and child must come first , ' she said sympathetically .
Idiom: yes and no (used idiomatically: no)
' I do n't want to bore you , ' Harvey said , ' but you should understand that these heaps of wire can practically think — linear programming — which means that instead of going through all the alternatives they have a hunch which is the right one . What 's more , almost none of them work by binary notation — the normal method for computers — because that 's just yes / no stuff . ( If you can only store yeses and noes it takes seven punch holes to record the number ninety - nine . ) These machines use tiny chips of ceramic which store electricity . They store any amount from one to nine .
Idiom: for good measure (used idiomatically: yes)
There 's simply no personal challenge whatsoever ; one may as well pull the wings off small inspects or laugh at old people . Kylie really does seem like a very sweet person , and it is , after all , quite remarkable for a woman with all the sex appeal of Andy Pandy and the vocal panache of Bosco to have achieved so much , so young . This is the new , raunchy Kylie ( I use the word ‘ raunchy’ in its broadest possible sense ) and ‘ Let 's Get To It’is basically eight desperate attempts at funkiness with two token ballads thrown in for good measure . The problem is that Kylie , no matter how short the mini - skirt , will never be anything other than wholesome . She sings about sex with all the passion of a particularly prudish kindergarden teacher , and the songs , written predominantly by Stock , Waterman and Minogue herself , are just dull in spite of‘provocative’ titles like ‘ Right Here , Right Now’and ‘ I Guess I Like It Like That’ .
Idiom: do the right thing (used idiomatically: no)
They continued to walk along the corridors of the dungeons , until they came to another stairway . Bernice turned and faced the typewriter creature that was following them . ‘ I hope we 're doing the right thing , Doctor,’ she said . She smiled , and then began to climb the stairs to the ground level and the shapechanger . As she did , a cold shiver ran down her back .
Idiom: writ large (used idiomatically: yes)
Much of his study of the often shameful encounter between the conquerors and the native Indians was hazy to me now , but the clean lines of the narrative still reverberated within me whenever I saw an Inca ashlar . It told how an empire of six hundred miles wide and nearly three thousand miles long , so big the Incas called it Tahuantinsuyo , the Four Quarters of the Earth , had been engaged in a fratricidal war of succession when its miserable future was planned by two uneducated adventurers , Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro , and by a priest , Father Hernando de Luque . From this time on , from one point of view , it was a dramatic story of courage , endurance and greed , a South American version of The Good , the Bad and the Ugly writ large . From another it was simply teased out tragedy which had begun with the cruelly pragmatic strangulation of the Inca ( King ) Atahualpa in Cajamarca , followed by the systematic looting of the empire 's wealth and the suffering of its peoples till the Inca kingdom was reduced to the forest sanctuary of Vilcabamba . But even there they were not to be left alone , and after the last campaign the conquest ended ignominiously as it had begun with the summary execution of Tupac Amaru , thirty - nine years after Atahualpa , his uncle .
Idiom: do me a favour (used idiomatically: no)
You coming tomorrow , no ? Dee Dee Dee , Would you do me a favour ? Get a record I just rea I mean I knew that I had heard of it then I realized .
Idiom: spring to mind (used idiomatically: no)
There was some later affidavit of my mother 's , which gave her date of birth , Geneva 1893 , the date of her marriage in 1919 , the date of his death in 1934 . At once I waved away the unjustly famous quotation which sprang with great obviousness to my mind . When lines of poetry spring spontaneously to the mind of a lawyer , I thought , they have surely ceased to be true . Life holds more than birth , copulation and death . ( 31 )
Idiom: on the ball (used idiomatically: yes)
You saw that when he came on against Scotland . He had his hands on the ball three times in one spilling maul . At the line - out he 's not the tallest or the springiest jumper , but yet again he gets his hands on the ball , snapping up all the ricochets . However , Richards is a reactive rather than proactive player . He plays in a definite way , dropping off scrums into a defensive pocket .
Idiom: take a dim view of (used idiomatically: yes)
Mr. Townsend I welcome the work that the Government have done in that important respect . Is my hon . Friend the Minister aware of a recent report suggesting that pupils from such schools are most likely to take a particularly dim view of all paramilitary organisations ? Is he further aware that a problem exists in finding suitable financial resources for nursery education ? Will he see what can be done about that ?
Idiom: rock bottom (used idiomatically: yes)
Voice over There 's only one thing potato farmers want on Britain 's menu this autumn … spuds , spuds , and more spuds . They 're up to their ears in them because the wet summer has produced a glut … and forced prices to rock bottom . Male speaker With a crop with a limited amount of sales surplus production suppresses prices , and you must be more competitive with your fellow farmers
Idiom: fit the bill (used idiomatically: yes)
Like , I love Cheap Trick!’ Gigolo Aunts consist of Velvet Crush part - timer David , drummer Paul Brouwer , bassist Steve Hurley and his twanging brother Phil on guitar . If the effervescent ‘ Cope’— a splendid mixture of Crush melodic instinct ( jeez , listen to those harmonies go ! ) and Buffalo Tom style sonic scrapping — suggests some kind of abnormally perfect lifestyle , then David 's conversation fits the bill perfectly . The impression I get is that Gigolo Aunts know more about good ol' apple pie than Mr Bloody Kipling . ‘ We come from a tiny , tiny little town in Upstate New York,’ explains the singer .
Idiom: go all the way (used idiomatically: yes)
In his words , he ‘ sold’ himself to the Norwich City Football Club , persistently going to the training ground when aged 14 and 15 , until the club offered him an apprentice 's contract . He was convinced that a career lay in sport and reckoned the media influenced his perception of himself . Before I left school , the local papers were full of me , They were always saying things like ‘ This boy will go all the way to the top’ and that , and I suppose you could say I took notice of the media . But I was into boxing pretty heavily as well . I 'd met Gordon Holmes , who knew the London managers and he was guiding me .
Idiom: do the trick (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ I thought it was too low,’ she says . ‘ So I threatened to take the case to court.’ That did the trick , and in January Susan was offered a four figure sum which she accepted . ‘ The whole thing took seven months,’ she says . ‘ I 'm glad I did it , but I 'm still trying to grow out the damage .
Idiom: spring to mind (used idiomatically: no)
But this does n't happen too often , so it is usually up to you to create your own image . And remember , the more funny or ridiculous that image is , the simpler it will be to remember . To show you what I mean , I have selected a few names at random from my local telephone directory and listed them , together with the image which sprang to my mind ( although yours might be completely different ) . Here they are : PHILLIP DIAMOND — a container full to the top ( full up = Phillip — see ? ) with diamonds .
Idiom: over the counter (used idiomatically: yes)
Global marketing ; big drugs companies try to ease the pain of more competition by selling products worldwide . SmithKline could help Beecham sell in Japan and America , the two biggest markets , while Beecham could help SmithKline in Europe . SmithKline could also benefit from Beecham 's experience in selling over - the - counter medicines . It hopes to sell Tagamet , now a prescription drug , this way . Focus ; both Beecham and SmithKline depend on diversified operations to generate the cash flow needed to fund expensive drugs RED and marketing .