Banking Pathway: Idioms & Phrases

Be a chicken

• Meaning: Be a coward.
• Example: Don't be a chicken. Talk to her about your love for her

A little bird told me

• Meaning: Said when you don't want reveal the source of your information.
• Example: A little bird told me about your birthday.

As gentle as a lamb

• Meaning: Said about kind , innocent, mild-mannered people.
• Example: She is as gentle as a lamb. That's why everybody likes her.

Back the wrong horse

• Meaning: to support someone or something that later cannot be successful.
• Example: Don't back the wrong horse! You know he cannot win the elections.

Be a cold fish

• Meaning: be a person who is distant and unfeeling
• Example: He rarely talks to his colleagues. He's a cold fish.

Be like a fish out of water

• Meaning: to feel uncomfortable in a situation 
• Example: After her divorce, she was like a fish out of water

Beat a dead horse

• Meaning: (Also flog a dead horse.) To persist or continue far beyond any purpose, interest or reason.
• Example: If you continue talking about something that cannot be changed, you are beating a dead horse.

Call off the dogs

• Meaning: said when you want someone to stop criticizing you
• Example: Please, call off the dogs. I apologize for what I have done.

Big fish in a small pond

• Meaning: One who has achieved a high rank or is highly esteemed, but only in a small, relatively unimportant, or little known location or organization.
• Example: Dr. Jones could get a professorship at an Ivy League university, but he enjoys being a big fish in a small pond too much to ever leave Hannover College.

Cash cow

• Meaning: someone or something which is a dependable source of appreciable amounts of money; a moneymaker.
• Example: The type writers production which had been their cash cow for so many years witnessed a collapse of sales.

A mare’s nest 

• Meaning: a false invention
• Example: the involvement of teachers in the scheme proved to be a mare’s nest.

At odds

• Meaning: in dispute
• Example: The members of the group were at odds over the selection procedure.

No love lost

• Meaning: intense dislike
• Example: There is no love lost between the two neighbours.

Rub one the wrong way

• Meaning: annoy
• Example: If you rub him the wrong way, he is bound to react.

Turn the corner

• Meaning: pass the crisis
• Example: The doctor says that the patient has turned the corner.

Sow wild oats

• Meaning: irresponsible pleasure seeking
• Example: After sowing his wild oats Ram has decided to stick to the straight and narrow path in future.

With a high hand

• Meaning: oppressively
• Example: He was a king who ruled his subjects with a high hand.

A good turn

• Meaning: an act of kindness
• Example: He did me a good turn by recommending me for the post of Vice – president.

A moot point

• Meaning: undecided
• Example: The question of abolition of property is still a moot point.

Hole and corner

• Meaning: secret
• Example: I don't want any more hole-in-the-corner deals, from now all our business will be done in the open.