Gooogr/pie_idioms huggingface dataset:
Idiom: in the pink (used idiomatically: yes)
They stood up from their points - cleaning to watch the express pass when , to the delight of her comrades , one of them bellowed ' Mishka ! ' to the train driver through a rolled - up magazine . A brief and warming thigh - slapping routine ensued before headscarves bound tight as bandages were again bowed before the task in hand . It was around Lake Baikal that the woman in pink had been able to share in her daughter 's delight with the journey . She explained to us that she had spent her childhood in a village near Irkutsk . She pointed beyond a wooden pier to the place where she used to sit on a crate beside her father as he fished through the ice .
Idiom: turn someone's head (used idiomatically: yes)
I was watching the scene from the kitchen end of the dining car , standing just behind Emil , Cathy and Oliver . I could see Xanthe 's troubled face clearly , and also Filmer 's beside her . He seemed to me to be showing diminishing interest in the enquiry , turning his tidily brushed head away to look out of the window instead . There was no tension in him : when he was tense there was a rigidity in his neck muscles , a rigidity I 'd watched from the depths of the crowd during the brief day of his trial and seen a few times since , as at Nottingham . When Filmer felt tense , it showed .
Idiom: take a dim view of (used idiomatically: yes)
This , Corris calls the ‘ North Sea Gas Option’ after the massive conversion exercise in the 1970s when UK Gas Board had to replace or convert every domestic gas cooker to get it to work with the new fuel . Gas Board Unlike the 1970s Gas Board , Telecom has its hands tied by the regulator : the Office of Telecommunications would take a dim view of it cross - subsidising ISDN installation at the expense of another part of its business . Beyond that there is the sheer cost involved in visiting all of its customers and replacing the BT box on their wall with another , more expensive one and writing off the old analogue exchange line cards . Forcing its customers to junk their telephones and buy expensive new digital handsets will not be popular either , so BT is considering installing combined analogie and ISDN junction boxes — which has the disadvantage of pushing up the cost yet again .
Idiom: take liberties (used idiomatically: no)
May the House not forget , through the Secretary of State , the workmates of those relatives who I am sure today , as they go about their legal business and pursue their employment , must have their own personal thoughts against the background of Friday 's events . I believe that I am right in saying that the Secretary of State is a direct descendent of the famous Scottish writer J. M. Barrie . May I take the liberty of reminding the right hon . Gentleman of his relative 's famous quote in relation to his own personal position : that each man 's life is like a diary in which we set out to write one account and finish up writing something different and that our most humble moment comes when we compare what we have written with that which we intended to write . In relation to the right hon . Gentleman 's personal position , there is no hon . Member who believes that he intended any malice in what happened on the television show on Friday night . In the presence of the Patronage Secretary and the Leader of the House , may I suggest to the Secretary of State that his personal position , because of the very sensitive job that he does in Government , should be cleared up before this day is finished ?
Idiom: get on someone's nerves (used idiomatically: yes)
Oh yeah . Yeah . I think she well and the house was certainly getting on her nerves but whether it was because she was ill it was getting on her nerves I do n't know . You see she was being si she 's been sick continuously day and night . Oh dear .
Idiom: go the distance (used idiomatically: yes)
When things go badly wrong , is it best to abort the mission , cut one 's losses and use the resources more effectively elsewhere , or go on trying ? There is a difference between a project which never gets off the ground and one which suddenly goes bad . The natural tendency is to try harder with the project that has gone some distance . Yet it would be possible to argue exactly the opposite case . The project that never got off the ground may need redesigning .
Idiom: go it alone (used idiomatically: yes)
Who else said no ? Yes ? Yeah , I think some people do n't want er , the fathers having any sort of rights over them , they do n't want the access er , to the children , so in a way , they prefer to go it alone . Erm So do you think that 's retrogressive legislation rather than helpful legislation ?
Idiom: at sea (used idiomatically: yes)
For the next twelve years he cruised in the North Sea and Mediterranean and along the coasts of Africa . Although he distinguished himself in action , Hodgskin found naval discipline irksome and his comrades ' company desultory . Whilst at sea he began to read widely , but necessarily unsystematically . Conflicts with his superiors deprived him of the prospect of promotion , and at the age of twenty - five he found himself on the retired list , reduced to half pay in 1812 . In his first published work , An Essay on Naval Discipline ( 1813 ) , he contrasted the arbitrary brutality of naval life with the good government with which Britain was reputedly blessed .
Idiom: in a rut (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ Why bother?’ and ‘ who cares?’are phrases that are typical of this lack of energy . Apathy is a state of mind . It is the state of being in a rut , just carrying on with something without clear decisions or purpose . Some of us spend all our lives in this dreamy , inert state . We go to work , eat , sleep , get married , have children , get divorced , always just going through the motions without being involved , without sparkle , without real enjoyment or genuine pain .
Idiom: fall short (used idiomatically: yes)
The Court held that these were mere statements of fact and as such were not relevant . It added , perhaps with some irony , that there was always a situation of the world market in fuel and that it was natural for the Commission to receive bids in response to its invitations to tender . Although the Commission had a wide discretion , it was held in this case that the reasons stated fell short of the minimum required by Article 190 . Failure to state reasons , or adequate reasons , is frequently invoked as a ground of annulment before the European Court ; and as a result there is a substantial amount of case law on the subject . It emerges from this case law that Article 190 requires that regulations , directives , and decisions should contain a statement of the reasons which led the institution to adopt them , so as to make possible a review by the Court of Justice and so that the Member States and the nationals concerned may have knowledge of the conditions under which the Community institutions have applied the Treaty .
Idiom: cast your mind back (used idiomatically: yes)
Derry keyed up DOWN may or may not have meant it but they have certainly succeeded in providing Derry with an extra incentive to triumph in next Sunday 's Ulster championship glamour tie . Cast your minds back a few weeks . The occasion was the Dr. McKenna Cup final , the setting was the Athletic Grounds Armagh . Down and Derry were poised to do battle for the trophy — or so everyone thought .
Idiom: under the influence (used idiomatically: no)
The days after the Ides were reckoned as days before the Calends of the succeeding month . This system was still in use in western Europe as late as the sixteenth century ! In Imperial times , however , the custom became popular , under astrological influence , to use the seven - day week with the different days named after the respective ' planets ' . Inscriptions at Pompeii list the ' days of the gods ' , namely Saturn , the Sun , the Moon , Mars , Mercury , Jupiter , and Venus . This order , from which our modern days of the week derive ( e.g. iii French ) , appears at first sight to be devoid of sense , since it does not accord in an obvious way with the order in which ( according to pre - Copernican cosmology ) the ' planets ' were thought to lie in relation to the earth : Saturn , Jupiter , Mars , the sun , Venus , Mercury , the moon .
Idiom: call it a day (used idiomatically: yes)
We have an annual report for er this end of year financial commentary . Yeah . a a and call it a day . Er It 's about as interesting as a financial report from anybody .
Idiom: at a stretch (used idiomatically: no)
I held the watch to my ear - it was battery - run , but a faint tick could normally be heard . No sound . And now that I thought about it , I had vaguely wondered at the ' good time ' I had made on my walk from the cottage , and at the leisurely stretch of time I had had on the island . Had I even left my cottage at two o'clock ? My watch must have been gradually slowing to a stop all day .
Idiom: on the fly (used idiomatically: yes)
This processor carries out exactly the same load balancing process until the thread finds a home , is translated by the chip 's translator and begins to run . Fancy graphics All this talk of bits of code being pulled out of disk and cache , being translated on the fly and wandering around networks sounds horrendously slow , but appears in practice to be blindingly fast . A personal computer with a single 66MHz 80486 will render a broadcast quality , full screen , complex piece of ray - tracing in less than a minute . That is with no fancy graphics chips and using a standard VESA video adapter board .
Idiom: in the short run (used idiomatically: yes)
This eventually led to a re - leveraging of the public sector as fiscal stimulus and socialization of private losses – bail - out programs – caused a dangerous rise in budget deficits and the stock of public debt . While such fiscal stimulus and bailouts may have been necessary to prevent the Great Recession from turning into Great Depression II , piling public debt on top of private debt carries a high cost . Eventually those large deficits and debts need to be reduced through higher taxes and lower spending , and such austerity – necessary to avoid a fiscal crisis – tends to slow economic recovery in the short run . If fiscal imbalances are not addressed through spending cuts and revenue increases , only two options remain : inflation for countries that borrow in their own currency and can monetize their deficits ; or default for countries that borrow in a foreign currency or ca n’t print their own . Thus , the recent events in Greece , Portugal , Ireland , Italy , and Spain are but the second stage of the recent global financial crisis .
Idiom: sign of the times (used idiomatically: yes)
In his reply of 21 February 1935 , he added a footnote in his own hand which put the matter aptly ; but about my second article he had his doubts . As Eliot was very sparing of exclamation marks , and must rarely have employed two in juxtaposition , it was clear to me that , with the particular reservation he made , he was far from thinking my letter ineffective . I recall that I had written another broadside in reply to an article in The Student Vanguard by Rayner Heppenstall , then a communist , called ‘ T. S. Eliot : sign of the times’ . He had attacked Eliot for worshipping culture , which I considered about as false an imputation as could be imagined . I also wrote to Waldo Frank , who , in an article to which Harold Mason drew my attention , had attacked Eliot .
Idiom: down the hatch (used idiomatically: no)
Tom stared out of the window and chewed the end of his pipe . He gave a little tap on the floor with his foot and then moved towards the bed and gently ruffled Willie 's hair . He was half - way down the hatch with Sammy in his arms when he remembered something . ‘ Do n't forget them ole prayers.’ ‘ No , mister,’ said Willie .
Idiom: see stars (used idiomatically: yes)
Dalziel had looked pityingly at the sergeant . ' Wise men do n't travel by day , ' he said . ' You ca n't see any stars by day . You 've got to wait till it 's night . ' ' Oh ?
Idiom: win the day (used idiomatically: yes)
By 1905 learning to design station grounds had become an accepted part of landscape architectural education . But a dispute grew up in the always cost - conscious companies between those who wanted to beautify the trackside to delight the approaching train travellers and those who wanted more spacious station gardens as an urban amenity . By the 1920S the former had won the day and landscape architects turned their talents to municipal projects . The companies dispensed with their services and left it to their employees to provide the beautification . Those gardens which survived were in the main bulldozed and concreted over to provide station car - parking in the 1950 , another victory for functionalism over aesthetics .
Idiom: go straight (used idiomatically: yes)
The project was controversial and the power station was only permitted providing the smoke was clean and the building did not challenge the visual dominance of St Paul 's . So the single chimney rose only to 325 ft , some 45 ft below the height of the cross above the cathedral . The irony is that had the tower been higher and had the teak ‘ scrubbers’ been less efficient , the smoke would have gone straight up into the air . As it was , the ‘ smokeless shimmer of vapour’ was so cooled by cleaning that it drifted across the river to cause mischief with the leadwork on Wren 's great dome . Bankside Power Station should not have been built .
Idiom: tit for tat (used idiomatically: yes)
But the trade war , which results from failure to agree , offers no sort of solution at all . At a time when the world is struggling to get out of recession , it is just about the worst thing that could happen . As tit - for - tat measures impose new , higher taxes on imports , the only result can be a general cutback in consumption . There will be no winners in this war . And once again , it brings into focus the curious contradiction of Europe where , when it comes to the final analysis , countries like France , which spend so much time preaching about European unity , find themselves unable to act in the mutual interest of the community .
Idiom: in the final analysis (used idiomatically: no)
Public service broadcasting objectives were intertwined with two other issues : the state as arbiter between different interests ( programme companies , the cinema industry , etc . ( and state support for ‘ worthy’ or ‘ noble causes’— the defence of the French language , of French film production , of programmes for children . In the 1982 communications law — and even in its 1986 counterpart ‘ cahiers de charge’ again detailed the ‘ general obligations’imposed on public service broadcasters . The government consults ( broadcasting companies , Parliament , and — after 1982 — advisory or regulatory bodies ) but , in the final analysis , it makes the rules.’ Even in 1986 — when TFI was privatized and when the deregulation of broadcasting involved a transfer of power from the Communications Ministry to the Regulatory Body , the CNCL — employees of the Law Department of the CNCL stressed the importance of the residual powers of the government , exercised partly via the ‘ cahiers des charges’ . The 1974 law — unlike those of 1982 and 1986 — was little debated in Parliament .
Idiom: from the word go (used idiomatically: no)
I should have thought that it was much more sensible to make proposals from the start for both a station and a link . If we allow the King 's Cross Railways Bill to proceed and in the end no high - speed link or underground link between Stratford and King 's Cross is built , we shall be left with an enormous white elephant at King 's Cross with no means of getting to it from the channel tunnel . It is important to consider the link and the station together , and British Rail and the Government should have done so from the word go . Mr. Snape There is a small matter which I should draw to my hon . Friend 's attention .
Idiom: short shrift (used idiomatically: yes)
OSF will go public with its ANDF decision after member and board meetings in Munich this week . There , OSF will layout ‘ open road’ plans for each of its technologies , thought to include much re - focusing of its efforts . Rumours were circulating last week that even OSF/1 , its nominal raison d'etre , would be given short shrift in those re - prioritisations . Meta Group analyst , Kate Fessenden , claims OSF is looking for a graceful exit and that once OSF/1.1 comes out , and Unix SVR4 applications are able to run on it , it will simply be allowed to wither away . Some reports suggest that OSF members are reluctant to fund ANDF any further because it will inevitably dim their distinguishing marks .
Idiom: in tandem (used idiomatically: yes)
Against an immobile target , such as a wall , even the early cannon could inflict quite considerable damage . There are references to such ‘ gonnes’ in accounts of the siege of Berwick as early as 1333 , while it is likely that some form of artillery was brought across the sea by the English for the long siege of Calais of 1346–7 . During the next generation both old and new siege weapons were to be used in tandem . In 1369 a trebuchet , used for slinging stones , was employed at the siege of La - Roche - sur - Yon , and in 1356–7 another was in evidence at the siege of Rennes ; as late as 1378 another was in use before Cherbourg , having been brought there in pieces and assembled on the spot . Yet three years earlier , at the important siege of nearby Saint - Sauveur - le - Vicomte , the French had used thirty - two cannons , gunstones for them having been conveyed there in carts and by packhorse .
Idiom: from pillar to post (used idiomatically: yes)
Or thingy Well both Both , but this one next door Bev is pushed from pillar to post Yeah I mean
Idiom: on the ropes (used idiomatically: yes)
The wave must have been fifteen feet high . He broke surface , his own breathing hissing and venting in his ears . With powerful leg strokes , moving just beneath the surface he closed with the raft , and got his hand on the rope grab handles . Before he could do anything more another wave lifted him high into the foam - filled wind , then dizzyingly dropped him down into a hole in the ocean . In the seconds at the bottom when everything had steadied , when there was n't a breath of air , just a strange unreal calm , he rolled over the edge and clawed his way on to the thin rubber bottom of the raft .
Idiom: make or break (used idiomatically: yes)
A canoeist died when his canoe overturned in the swollen River Ogwen in north Wales . Make or break in store HIGH Street stores throw open their doors today and tomorrow for a make - or - break final festive shopping weekend . They hope families will succumb to the traditional last - minute dash to buy gifts . For many retailers , particularly jewellers , the days before December 25 are the most crucial .
Idiom: get your hands dirty (used idiomatically: yes)
But it has long been a mystery to me why students find proofs to be a mystery , and Solow has the answer : it 's not enough to tell them ‘ a proof is a sequence of logical steps’ . You might as usefully say ‘ a symphony is a sequence of musical notes’ . Then we have the ‘ get your hands dirty’ philosophy , admirably pursued by R. P. Burn in . A Pathway into Number Theory . ‘ Have you ever followed each step of a proof , and yet felt you did not understand what it was about?’
Idiom: bag and baggage (used idiomatically: yes)
Instinctively , in acceptance , Peggy took her grandmother 's face between her hands and gently kissed her ; then they went out together . ‘ May you come over here and see the New Year in ? Lass , you may bring your bag and baggage and come over here and live for good.’ ‘ No , she ca n't ! I 'm not having another female in this house ; we 've got enough.’
Idiom: left and right (used idiomatically: yes)
Initial impressions are of a heavy tool ( 5.2 kg ) , thanks to the motor size , with a very solid , compact feel , although the Skil is actually not that large a machine for its capacity . A ‘ shark 's fin’ handle protrudes from the motor housing , and this has a safety catch button that protrudes through both sides of the handle . This means that left and right - handed users can safely start and use the saw . Ask many tradesmen what they use to rip timber ( cut parallel with the longest sides , along the grain ) and they reply ‘ a Skil saw’ . Skil broke much of the ground in portable saw technology almost 60 years ago , and the company name now has a reliable , quality image .
Idiom: beg the question (used idiomatically: yes)
Er , it 's a shame because er , to be honest I thought it was an excellent conference It was Good about everything , good salesmen , erm , but I think we do have to take er , Jack 's thoughts on that , that really perhaps we are begging the question when we , just forget ourselves and keep going till three , four o'clock in the morning whatever it is , and then we 'll get in the car and drive home . O K , done that bit , erm , come on Jane , tell me about Roy . He does n't want to cover the Warwickshire area , and he 's hoping soon perhaps to get promoted to senior executive .
Idiom: foot the bill (used idiomatically: yes)
The ministry currently says that ‘ public good’ advice given on initial visits to farms will be free of charge . CPRE 's evidence shows that during the committee stages of the 1986 Agriculture Act , Mr Gummer said that conservation advice would not be charged for . During one committee meeting , the minister said : ‘ We are footing the bill , and one of the things we are footing the bill for is conservation advice.’ By last year , in a letter to CPRE , junior environment minister David Trippier said : ‘ Charges have been introduced only for the detailed conservation and environmental services which ADAS now provides ; for example , full guidance on design , planning , management and budgetary aspects of conservation projects together , if necessary , with supervision of the work concerned.’ Dudley Coates , an ADAS director of regional management , said in another letter to CPRE written in 1990 : ‘ If site - specific , detailed , design , planning , management and budgetary guidance , or supervision of on - site work are requested , these would all be provided as chargeable services .
Idiom: to say the least (used idiomatically: yes)
The baby finally gave a feeble and pitiful squawk , quite unlike the enraged roars which McAllister had been told that her sturdy brothers had made on entering their privileged world — and which she had undoubtedly made herself — but at least he was breathing . Dr Neil , cradling him in his arms for a moment before handing him to McAllister to care for , wondered not for the first time on such occasions whether he had done the baby a favour by enabling him to live . With no acknowledged father , a child mother — if the mother survived , which he was beginning to doubt — and an attic in a tenement as its home , his future seemed uncertain , to say the least . But he was not God , to decide such matters , only a competent and caring doctor , and his duty to humanity and to his Hippocratic oath — to save life , not destroy it — left him no choice . He laid the naked red scrap briefly in Effie 's arms , and said abruptly to McAllister , ‘ Let Rose do that while you take the baby from me and find something to wrap it in .
Idiom: in living memory (used idiomatically: yes)
I will continue to take whatever action is needed , however unpopular it may be , to keep our economy sound and strong.’ The Chancellor said the British people had responded to privatisation , trade union reform , deregulation and tax reform with a dynamism that had surprised the world . ‘ There is no precedent in living memory for the eight years of sustained growth and surging prosperity that Britain has enjoyed with this Conservative government . It has been a rebirth — and all the more vigorous for being so long overdue . ‘ That vigour has been reinforced by something else : confidence , a belief in Britain 's future.’