English idioms, proverbs, and expressions are an important part of everyday English. They come up all the time in both written and spoken English. Because idioms don’t always make sense literally, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the meaning and usage of each idiom. That may seem like a lot of work, but learning idioms is fun, especially when you compare English idioms to the idioms in your own language.
Here’s a list of “Idioms Beginning With S” in English:
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Sacred Cow
Meaning: An indvidual or organization that one cannot criticize
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Saving Grace
Meaning: Something that redeems a bad situation
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Scare the Living Daylights Out of Someone
Meaning: Frighten someone severely
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Scorched Earth (Tactics, Policy, etc.)
Meaning: Ruthless, extremely destructive
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Screw The Pooch
Meaning: To make a serious error
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School Of Hard Knocks
Meaning: Difficult real-life experiences from which one has learned
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Second Banana
Meaning: A person in a subservient position
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Second Stringer
Meaning: A substitute player in a sport; a substitute for a job who is not the most talented person
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Second Wind
Meaning: Renewed energy
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See Eye to Eye
Meaning: To concur, agree
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See Something Out of the Corner of Your Eye
Meaning: Use peripheral vision
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Seize (Take) the Bull By the Horns
Meaning: Attack a problem directly
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Seize the Day
Meaning: Take an opportunity
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Sell (Someone) a Bill of Goods
Meaning: Trick someone; be deceptive
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Sell Like Hotcakes
Meaning: Be sold very quickly
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Selling Point
Meaning: An attractive feature of something for sale
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Set in Stone
Meaning: Fixed; unchangeable
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Set something to Music
Meaning: To write a piece of music to accompany a set of words
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Set the Bar (Too) High
Meaning: To set a high standard for something
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Set the Thames on Fire
Meaning: Do something amazing. Usually used in the negative.
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Set the World on Fire
Meaning: Do something amazing; have a brilliant stretch in one’s career
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Shake the Dust off Your Shoes (Feet)
Meaning: Make a clean break with a relationship or situation
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Shape Up or Ship Out
Meaning: Behave properly or leave the organization
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Sharp as A Tack
Meaning: Mentally agile
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Shell Game
Meaning: A method of deception in which you conceal your actions by moving something frequently
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Shift Gears
Meaning: Change the subject, or change what one is doing
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Shipshape And Bristol Fashion
Meaning: Tidy, clean
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Shit a Brick
Meaning: Be extremely fearful.
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Shoot from the Hip
Meaning: Talk or act without consideration
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Shoot Off One’s Mouth
Meaning: Talk without considering one’s words
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Shoot Oneself In The Foot
Meaning: Do something that damages oneself or one’s own cause
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Short Fuse
Meaning: A quick temper; a tendency to anger quickly
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Shot Across the Bow
Meaning: A warning of more serious actions to come
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Shoulder A Weight Off Your Shoulders
Meaning: You no longer worry about something or deal with something difficult
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Show Me an X And I’ll Show You a Y
Meaning: There is a consequence to X that you may not have thought of.
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Show One’s True Colors
Meaning: Reveal one’s true nature
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Show Your Cards
Meaning: Reveal your resources or plans
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Sick and Tired of
Meaning: Extremely annoyed by something that occurs repeatedly
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Sick as a Dog
Meaning: Extremely ill.
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Sick as a Parrot
Meaning: Very disappointed
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Sight for Sore Eyes
Meaning: A sight that makes you happy
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Silver Bullet
Meaning: Something simple that resolves a difficult problem
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Simmer Down
Meaning: Become less angry; regain one’s composure
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Sink or Swim
Meaning: Fail or succeed
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Sing a Different Tune
Meaning: Change your opinion
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Sit On (Something)
Meaning: Delay revealing or acting on something
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Sit Tight
Meaning: Wait and do not go anywhere
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Sitting Duck
Meaning: Something or someone easily attacked or criticized
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Sitting Pretty
Meaning: In a favorable situation
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Six Feet Under
Meaning: Dead and buried
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Six Feet Under
Meaning: Dead and buried
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Six of One, a Half Dozen of the Other
Meaning: The two choices have no significant differences.
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Six Ways to (from) Sunday
Meaning: In every possible way
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Slam Dunk
Meaning: An effort that is certain to succeed
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Sleep Like a Baby
Meaning: To experience a very deep and restful sleep; to sleep soundly
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Sleep with the Fishes
Meaning: Dead, often by murder
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Slip Someone a Mickey
Meaning: Add a drug to an alcoholic drink in order to knock someone out
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Slippery Slope
Meaning: A series of undesirable effects that, one warns, could result from a certain action
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Slower than Molasses
Meaning: Exceptionally slow or sluggish; not fast at all.
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Small Beer
Meaning: Unimportant, insignificant
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Small Fry
Meaning: People or organizations with little influence; children
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Small Potatoes
Meaning: Unimportant, insignificant
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Smell a Rat
Meaning: Suspect deception
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Smoking Gun
Meaning: indisputable evidence of a crime
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Snafu
Meaning: A malfunction; a chaotic situation
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Snake Oil
Meaning: A useless medicine; a quack remedy; a product or measure promoted as a solution that really does nothing to help
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Snake Oil
Meaning: Medicine of unproven value; fraudulent medicine
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Sneak Peek
Meaning: A sneak peek is an opportunity to view something in advance of its official opening or debut
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Soak Up the Sun
Meaning: To enjoy the sun
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Sold On (Something)
Meaning: Convinced of something
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Some Eggs
Meaning: Achieving a major goal requires the ability to tolerate some problems
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Someone’s Fingerprints Are All Over (Something)
Meaning: Someone’s influence is evident
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Something to Crow
Meaning: About Something to be proud of, an accomplishment about which one is justified in bragging
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Son of a Gun
Meaning: 1) A rogue. 2) An exclamation of surprise.
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Sore Point
Meaning: A sensitive topic for a particular person
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Sour Grapes
Meaning: Disparagement of something that has proven unattainable
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Sour Grapes
Meaning: Spiteful disparagment of a goal one has failed to achieve
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Spare The Rod And Spoil The Child
Meaning: It is necessary to physically punish children in order to raise them right.
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Speak of the Devil (and He Shall Appear)
Meaning: The person we have just been talking about has entered.
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Speak with A Plum in (one’s) Mouth
Meaning: To speak in a manner that is indicative of a high social class.
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Spick and Span
Meaning: Clean and neat
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Spill the Beans
Meaning: Reveal a secret
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Spin A Yarn
Meaning: Tell a story
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Spin One’s Wheels
Meaning: Engaging in activity that yields no progress; getting nowhere
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Spit into The Wind
Meaning: Wasting time on something futile
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Spoiling for a Fight
Meaning: Combative, wanting conflict, eager to argue or fight
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Spoiling for a Fight
Meaning: Combative, wanting conflict, eager to argue or fight
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Square the Circle
Meaning: Attempt an impossible task
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Stab Someone in the Back
Meaning: To betray (somebody)
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Stalking Horse
Meaning: Someone who tests a concept in advance of its application; a candidate who enters a political race in order to test the strength of the incumbent
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Stand (Someone) In Good Stead
Meaning: Be useful in the future
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Stand On One’s Own Two Feet
Meaning: To be independent and self-sufficient
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Stand One’s Ground
Meaning: Refuse to back down; insist on one’s position
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Start with a Clean Slate
Meaning: To start (something) again with a fresh beginning; to work on a problem without thinking about what has been done before
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Steal Someone’s Thunder
Meaning: Upstage someone
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Stem the Tide
Meaning: To stop or control the growth of something, usually something unpleasant.
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Step Up One’s Game
Meaning: Work to advance to a higher level of a competition
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Step Up to the Plate
Meaning: Prepare to take action, be the person in a group who takes action
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Stick It to the Man
Meaning: Do something that frustrates those in authority
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Stick Your Nose into Something
Meaning: Intrude into something that is not your affair
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Sticker Shock
Meaning: Surprise at the high price of something
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Stick-in-the-Mud
Meaning: A person who dislikes or adapts slowly to new ideas
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Sticky Wicket
Meaning: A difficult, tricky situation
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Stiff-Necked
Meaning: Stubborn; excessively formal
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Storm in a Teacup
Meaning: A commotion that dies down quickly, about something unimportant
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Stormy Relationship
Meaning: Relationship that has a lot arguments and disagreement
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Stumbling Block
Meaning: An obstacle, physical or abstract
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Straight Arrow
Meaning: An honest, trustworthy person
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Strain at a Gnat and Swallow a Camel
Meaning: To make a fuss over something unimportant while ignoring larger issues
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Strike A Chord
Meaning: Used to describe something that is familiar to you, reminds you of something or is connected to you somehow.
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Sugar Daddy
Meaning: A rich man who is generous with younger women in return for sexual favors
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Sure-Fire
Meaning: Certain to occur
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Swan Song
Meaning: A final appearance
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Swan Song
Meaning: This expression is used to describe a final act before dying or ending something.
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Sweep Under the Carpet
Meaning: Attempt to temporarily conceal a problem or error
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Sweep Under the Rug
Meaning: Attempt to temporarily conceal a problem or error
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Sweet Dreams!
Meaning: Sleep well!
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Sweeten the Deal
Meaning: Add something to an offer during a negotiation
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Sweeten the Pot
Meaning: Increase the amount of winnings potentially available in a game of chance, especially poker
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Swim Against the Tide
Meaning: Do something contrary to a trend or usual opinion
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Swim with Sharks
Meaning: To take a major risk
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Swim with the Fishes
Meaning: Have been killed, especially with involvement of organized crime
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Swing for the Fences
Meaning: Attempt to achieve the largest accomplishment possible
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Swing for the Fences
Meaning: Attempt to achieve the largest accomplishment possible
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Sword of Damocles
Meaning: Something that causes a feeling of constant threat.