Idioms & Phrases

Snapshot

• Idioms & Phrases test whether you know the figurative meaning of a fixed expression — the meaning you cannot work out from the individual words. "Spill the beans" has nothing to do with beans; it means reveal a secret.
• In CUET English this is pure recall plus a little context-reading: you are given an idiom (or a sentence containing one) and asked for its meaning, or given a meaning and asked for the idiom. There is no rule to derive — only exposure.
• The winning strategy is to learn idioms in themed clusters (money, anger, success, difficulty…) so related ones reinforce each other, and to read the whole sentence when the idiom is used in context, because tone often points to the answer.
• Exam reality: +5 / −1. Recognise the idiom, recall its meaning, and never take it literally.

Part 1 — High-frequency CUET idioms (learn these cold)

Part 2 — Themed clusters (learn idioms in families)

• Money: cost an arm and a leg, cost a pretty penny, tighten your belt, make ends meet, foot the bill, born with a silver spoon, money to burn, in the red.
• Difficulty/trouble: in hot water, in a tight corner, between the devil and the deep sea, in a fix, bite the bullet, face the music, in a pickle.
• Success/failure: hit the jackpot, on top of the world, throw in the towel, go down the drain, back to the drawing board, rest on one's laurels, go to the dogs.
• Secrets/truth: spill the beans, let the cat out of the bag, an open secret, the tip of the iceberg, smell a rat, a snake in the grass.
• Anger: blow a fuse, hit the roof, fly off the handle, add fuel to the fire, see red.
• Speed/rarity: in the blink of an eye, once in a blue moon, at the eleventh hour, against the clock, at the drop of a hat, out of the blue.
• Friendship/conflict: through thick and thin, bury the hatchet, burn bridges, see eye to eye, a fair-weather friend. Grouping like this means each new idiom is anchored to ones you already know, and the exam's "odd one out / closest meaning" options become easy to separate. When you revise, recite a whole cluster aloud — your memory stores the family, not isolated phrases.

Part 3 — Where idioms come from (origins help you remember)

Knowing the picture behind an idiom locks in its meaning:

• Bite the bullet — wounded soldiers bit a lead bullet to bear pain before anaesthetic, hence endure bravely.
• Burn the midnight oil — before electricity, working late meant burning oil lamps, hence study/work into the night.
• Break the ice — ships once broke harbour ice so others could pass; socially it means ease initial tension.
• Bury the hatchet — Native American chiefs literally buried weapons to signal peace.
• Steal someone's thunder — a playwright invented a thunder sound-effect; rivals copied it, "stealing his thunder".
• Red herring — a strong-smelling fish once used to throw hounds off a scent, hence a misleading clue. You will not be asked the origin, but the mental image makes recall automatic in the exam.

Part 4 — Method when the idiom is in a sentence

1. Spot the idiom — it is the part that does not make literal sense ("he kicked the bucket" cannot be literal).
2. Read the tone of the whole sentence — sad, happy, warning? The tone usually matches the idiom's meaning.
3. Reject literal options — the exam always plants a literal-meaning distractor; it is almost never correct.
4. Match register — informal idioms tend to have informal meanings.
5. Use surrounding clues — words like "finally", "suddenly", "in trouble" near the idiom hint at the meaning.

Part 5 — Common traps

• Literal distractor — "let the cat out of the bag" → "release an animal" is the planted wrong answer.
• Near-meaning confusion — "spill the beans" (reveal a secret) vs "let off steam" (release anger) — close but different.
• Positive vs negative — "steal someone's thunder" is negative (taking credit); don't pick a neutral paraphrase.
• Idiom vs proverb — "actions speak louder than words" is a proverb (a full saying); idioms are usually phrases.
• Similar wording, different sense — "in the same boat" (sharing trouble) vs "miss the boat" (lose a chance).
• Body-part idioms — "pull one's leg" (tease) vs "cost an arm and a leg" (expensive) vs "put one's foot down" (be firm) — the body part doesn't tell you the meaning.

Part 6 — Worked examples

1. "After the scandal, the minister was in hot water." Meaning? In trouble.
2. Choose the idiom for "to reveal a secret": spill the beans / let the cat out of the bag.
3. "The new policy was a blessing in disguise for farmers." Meaning? A hidden benefit that first looked like a setback.
4. "Stop beating around the bush." The speaker wants you to come to the point.
5. "Buying that phone cost an arm and a leg." It was very expensive.
6. "He got cold feet before the wedding." He lost his nerve.
7. "Her success was just the tip of the iceberg." Most of it is still hidden / much more lies beneath.
8. "They supported each other through thick and thin." Through good and bad times.
9. "The cheap deal made me smell a rat." I sensed something was wrong.
10. "After winning once he began to rest on his laurels." He stopped making an effort.
11. "The verdict was a bolt from the blue." It was a sudden shock.
12. "The rivals finally buried the hatchet." They made peace.

Part 7 — How to use this page

Learn the Part 1 table in themed clusters (Part 2), use the origins in Part 3 to fix the trickier ones, re-cover the meaning column and test yourself, then attempt the practice questions; for each miss, write the idiom in your own sentence. Finish with the timed test, and revise the traps in Part 5 the night before the exam.

One-line revision: an idiom's meaning is figurative, never literal; learn them in themed families, read the sentence's tone, and always reject the literal-meaning distractor.