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Idioms with their meanings, usage and origins.
How to use idioms in your daily life?
Idioms with their meanings, usage and origins.
How to use idioms in your daily life?
Discover them all! Get their meaning, learn about their origins... use them, work them into your spoken and written language...
A leopard cannot change his spots
Meaning
We cannot change the nature of things.
Usage
Mr. Wilson could not yell at Fred for stealing his mangoes because he is a very gentle and forgiving person. This instance portrays that Mr. Wilson was like a leopard who cannot change his spots.
Origin
Have you seen the spots on a leopard?
The saying originates from the 'Holy Bible.1 In the book of Jeremiah in the Holy Bible there is a verse which says 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard change his spots?' which means that the basic nature of things does not change, even with changed circumstances?
Hold your horses
Meaning
Slow down, be patient.
Usage
When I am impatiently eating the ice cream, Grandpa tells me to hold my horses.
Origin
Horse carts were used for travel in 19th Century America. When you wanted the cart driver to slow down, you had to tell him to rein in his steeds, in other words, "Hold your horses." Soon this expression came to be applied to life too, and if you want anybody to slow down or be a little patient all you need to say is "Hey!Hold your horses!"
Smell a rat
Meaning
To be suspicious or get a feeling that something is wrong.
Usage
On observing the thief's actions, the policeman smelt a rat and realised that the thief was lying and up to something foul.
Origin
This saying was used as early as the 16th Century. Man has always considered rats as dirty, smelly creatures. Even a cat, which suspects that a hole is occupied, will smell to see if it houses a rat. Soon this practice of the cat caught on to imply that if you sniff out something bad, you could "smell a rat"!
More Idioms:
Make a mountain out of a molehill.
donkey business.
Raining cats and dogs.
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