Idioms and Phrases Questions and Answers

Answer: B

It means to accept a deal without knowing what it is.

To buy a pig in a poke is to buy without inspecting: a poke is a sack, and the trick was to sell a cat in it as though it were a piglet - which is where letting the cat out of the bag comes from.

Answer: B

It means in a single action.

At one fell swoop is Macduff's phrase in Macbeth for the killing of his family - fell meaning cruel, and the swoop that of a bird of prey.

Answer: A

It means not facing reality.

To be away with the fairies is to be out of touch with the real world, dreaming or deluded.

Answer: D

It means a lonely forsaken place.

The back of beyond is somewhere extremely remote.

Answer: B

It means by any means.

By hook or by crook means by fair means or foul. It is thought to come from the right of villagers to take firewood that could be reached with a shepherd's crook or a billhook.

Answer: A

It means to argue.

To bandy words is to exchange them in dispute, from the old game of bandy in which a ball was struck to and fro.

Answer: C

It means to speak first after a long silence.

To break the ice is to begin, overcoming initial stiffness - from the ice-breaking ship that opens a passage for those behind.

Answer: B

It means bitter relations.

Bad blood between people is long-standing ill feeling.

Answer: D

It means to beat very badly.

To beat someone black and blue is to leave them covered in bruises - the two colours a bruise passes through.

Answer: A

It means to bully.

To browbeat is to intimidate by a stern manner, the brows drawn down in a frown.