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 T” in English:
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Take (Someone) to the Cleaners
Meaning: 1) Swindle; 2) defeat badly
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Take a Deep Dive (Into)
Meaning: Explore something extensively
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Take a Flyer
Meaning: To take a rise; especially to make a speculative investment
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Take a Gander
Meaning: Go to take a look at something
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Take a Hike
Meaning: Go away
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Take A Powder
Meaning: To leave, especially in order to avoid a difficult situation
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Take a Rain Check
Meaning: Decline an invitation but suggest that you’ll accept it at a later time.
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Take Five (Ten)
Meaning: Take a short break of five (ten) minutes
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Take Five
Meaning: To take one brief (about five minutes) rest period
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Take It Easy
Meaning: 1) Relax, rest; 2) (as a command) Calm down!
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Take It Easy
Meaning: Don’t hurry; relax; don’t get angry
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Take It Easy
Meaning: When you relax, or do things at a comfortable pace, you take it easy.
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Take It on The Chin
Meaning: Be attacked; suffer an attack
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Take It or Leave It (command)
Meaning: You must decide now whether you will accept this proposal
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Take Someone to Task
Meaning: Reprimand someone strongly
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Take Something with a Pinch (grain) of Salt
Meaning: If you take what someone says with a pinch of salt, you do not completely believe it.
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Take the Cake
Meaning: Be the most extreme instance
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Take the Edge Off (of Something)
Meaning: To slightly improve something negative
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Take the Fifth
Meaning: Refuse to answer because answering might incriminate or cause problems for you
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Take the Gloves Off
Meaning: Negotiate in a more aggressive way
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Take the High Road
Meaning: Refuse to descend to immoral activities or personal attacks
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Take The Mickey (Piss) (Out Of Someone)
Meaning: Make fun of or ridicule someone
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Take the Shine Off (Something)
Meaning: To do something that diminishes a positive event
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Take the Starch out of (Someone)
Meaning: Make someone less confident or less arrogant
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Take The Wind Out of Someone’s Sails
Meaning: To reduce someone’s confidence, ofte by doing something unexpected
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Take Your Life in Your Hands
Meaning: Undergo extreme risk
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Take Your Medicine
Meaning: Accept something unpleasant, for example, punishment, without protesting or complaining
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Take Your Time
Meaning: Don’t hurry, work at a relaxed pace
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Taste of Your Own Medicine
Meaning: The same unpleasant experience or treatment that one has given to others
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Teach an Old Dog New Tricks
Meaning: To change someone’s long-established habits. Usually used in the
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Tear One’s Hair out
Meaning: Be extremely worried or frustrated
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Tear-Jerker
Meaning: A film or book that makes you cry
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Tee Many Martoonies
Meaning: Too many martinis, scrambled to suggest drunkenness
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Tell It to the Marines
Meaning: I don’t believe you; you must think I’m gullible.
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Tempest in a Teapot
Meaning: A commotion about something unimportant
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Ten a Penny
Meaning: Ordinary, inexpensive
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Ten to One
Meaning: Something very likely
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Test the Waters
Meaning: Experiment with something cautiously
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Test the Waters
Meaning: Try something out in a preliminary way
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Tie the Knot
Meaning: Get married
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Tighten the Screws
Meaning: Increase pressure on someone
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Tight-Lipped
Meaning: secretive, unwilling to explain something
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Til the Cows Come Home
Meaning: For a very long time
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Time is Money
Meaning: time is valuable, so don’t waste it.
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Tip of the Iceberg
Meaning: A small, visible part of a much larger problem
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Tip One’s Hand
Meaning: Reveal one’s advantages; reveal useful information that one possesses
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TLC
Meaning: Tender Loving Care
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To be A Peach
Meaning: Someone or something that is extremely good, impressive, or attractive
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To be Smitten With Someone
Meaning: To be completely captivated by someone and feel immense joy
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To be someone’s One and Only
Meaning: To be unique to the other person
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To be the Apple of Someone’s Eye
Meaning: To be loved and treasured by someone
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To Bear Fruit
Meaning: To develop in a profitable or positive way
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To Bear Fruit
Meaning: To develop in a profitable or positive way
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To Carpool
Meaning: To travel to the same place with a group of people in one car. e.g. work/school
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To Each His Own
Meaning: People have different tastes.
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To Get Cold Feet
Meaning: To experience reluctance or fear
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To Have a Chip on One’s Shoulder
Meaning: To be combative, to be consistently argumentative
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To Have Butterflies In Your Stomach
Meaning: To be nervous
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To Have One For the Road
Meaning: To have one last (alcoholic) drink before you go home
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To Pay an Arm and a Leg
Meaning: A very high cost
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To Pop (one’s) Cherry
Meaning: To do something for the first time
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To Pull Someone’s Leg
Meaning: Lie playfully
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To Run Hot and Cold
Meaning: To be unable to make up one’s mind
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To the Letter
Meaning: Exactly (said of instructions or procedures)
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Toe the Line
Meaning: Accept authority, follow the rules
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Tone-Deaf
Meaning: Not good at perceiving the impact of one’s words, insensitive
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Tongue-in-Cheek
Meaning: Said ironically; not meant to be taken seriously
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Too Busy Fighting Alligators to Drain the Swamp
Meaning: So occupied with multiple challenges that one can’t keep the big picture in mind
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Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth
Meaning: A project works best if there is input from a limited number of people
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Too Many Chiefs and Not Enough Indians
Meaning: Everyone wants to be a leader, and no one wants to do the actual work
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Too Many To Shake A Stick At
Meaning: A large number
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Toot Your Own Horn
Meaning: Brag; emphasize one’s own contributions
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Top Banana
Meaning: The boss, the leader
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Toss a Wrench (Spanner) Into
Meaning: Sabotage; cause a process to stop
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Touch Base
Meaning: Meet briefly with someone
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Touch One’s Heart
Meaning: Affect someone emotionally, be touching
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Touch Water
Meaning: Be launched. Said of a boat.
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Tough Cookie
Meaning: A very determined person
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Tough Cookie
Meaning: Someone who can endure hardship; especially,a strong negotiator
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Tough Sledding
Meaning: Difficult progress
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Turn a Blind Eye
Meaning: (to) Choose not to notice something
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Turn on a Dime
Meaning: Quickly reverse direction or position
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Turn Someone Inside Out
Meaning: To cause strong emotional turmoil; to completely change someone
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Turn Something on Its Head
Meaning: Reverse something, cause something to be done in a new way
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Turn Turtle
Meaning: Capsize, turn over
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Turn the Corner
Meaning: To begin to improve after a problem
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Turn the Tables
Meaning: Reverse a situation
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Turnabout Is Fair Play
Meaning: If you suffer from the same suffering you have inflicted on others, that’s only fair
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Twenty-Four Seven
Meaning: At any time
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Twist the Knife (in Deeper)
Meaning: Make someone’s suffering worse
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Twist the Knife (in Deeper)
Meaning: Make someone’s suffering worse
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Two a Penny
Meaning: Ordinary, inexpensive
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Two Peas in A Pod
Meaning: Two people who are very similar in appearance
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Thank God It’s Friday (TGIF)
Meaning: Let’s be happy that the workweek is over!
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That Ship Has Sailed
Meaning: That opportunity has passed.
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That’s Music to My Ears
Meaning: I am very happy to hear this.
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That’s a Stretch
Meaning: What you are suggesting is very difficult to believe; I am very skeptical
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That’s All She Wrote
Meaning: That was the end of the story.
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The Apple Never Falls Far From the Tree
Meaning: Family characteristics are usually inherited
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The Birds and the Bees
Meaning: Human sexuality and reproduction
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The Cat Is Out of the Bag
Meaning: The secret has been revealed.
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The Coast Is Clear
Meaning: We are unobserved; it is safe to proceed.
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The Cherry On the Cake
Meaning: The final thing that makes something perfect
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The Deck Is (The Cards Are)
Meaning: Stacked Against You Unfavorable conditions exist.
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The Jig Is Up
Meaning: A secret illicit activity has been exposed; your trickery is finished
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The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
Meaning: Although something may seem superficially new, it has not altered the basic situation.
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The Only Game in Town
Meaning: The sole option for a particular service.
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The Powers That Be
Meaning: People in charge, often used when the speaker does not want to identify them.
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The Real McCoy
Meaning: A genuine item
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The Story Has Legs
Meaning: People are continuing to pay attention to the story.
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The Time is Ripe
Meaning: If you say that the time is ripe, you mean that it is a suitable point for a particular activity
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The Walls Have Ears We
Meaning: may be overheard; be careful what you say
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The Walls Have Ears
Meaning: We may be overheard; be careful what you say
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The Whole Enchilada
Meaning: All of something.
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The Whole Shebang
Meaning: Everything, all the parts of something
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The World Is Your Oyster
Meaning: You have many opportunities and choices.
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There But For The Grace Of God Go I
Meaning: I could easily have done what that person did.
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There’s More Than One Way to Skin a Cat
Meaning: There’s more than one way of achieving a certain goal.
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There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
Meaning: Nothing is given to you without some expectation of something in return.
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Thin On The Ground
Meaning: Rare, seldom encountered
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Think Big
Meaning: Consider ambitious plans; avoid becoming overly concerned with details
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Think Outside the Box
Meaning: Try to solve a problem in an original way; think creatively
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Think Tank
Meaning: A group of experts engaged in ongoing studies of a particular subject; a policy study group
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Think Tank
Meaning: A group of experts engaged in ongoing studies of a particular subject; a policy study group
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Third Rail
Meaning: A topic so sensitive that it is dangerous to raise. This is especially used in political contexts
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Third Time’s a Charm
Meaning: Even if you fail at something twice, you may well succeed the third time.
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Thirty-Thousand-Foot View
Meaning: A very broad or general perspective
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This Has (Person X) Written All Over It
Meaning: [Person X] would really like or be well suited to this.
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This Is Not Your Father’s ____
Meaning: This item has been much updated from its earlier versions.
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Three Sheets to the Wind
Meaning: Very drunk
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Through the Grapevine
Meaning: Via gossip
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Through Thick and Thin
Meaning: In good times and bad
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Throw a Wet Blanket on (Something)
Meaning: Discourage plans for something
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Throw a Wrench Into
Meaning: To sabotage; to cause to fail
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Throw Caution to the Wind
Meaning: To act in a daring way, without forethough
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Throw Down the Gauntlet
Meaning: To issue a challenge
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Throw Elbows
Meaning: Be combative; be aggressive (physically or figuratively)
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Throw in the Towel
Meaning: To give up, admit defeat
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Throw Someone for a Loop
Meaning: Deeply surprise someone; catch someone off guard
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Throw Someone Under the Bus
Meaning: Sacrifice someone else’s interests for your own personal gain
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Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water
Meaning: Eliminate something good while discarding the bad parts of something
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Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water
Meaning: To discard something valuable or important while disposing of something worthless
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Throw The Book At
Meaning: Prosecute legally as strongly as possible
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Throw the Fight
Meaning: Intentionally lose a contest, usually in collusion with gamblers
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Throw the Game
Meaning: Intentionally lose a contest, usually in collusion with gamblers
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Throw the Match
Meaning: Intentionally lose a contest, usually in collusion with gamblers
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Thumbs-Up
Meaning: Approval
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Train Wreck
Meaning: Anything that develops in a disastrous way
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Trash Talk
Meaning: Insults directed at one’s opponent in a sporting event or contest
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Tread Water
Meaning: Maintain a current situation without improvement or decline
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Trial Balloon
Meaning: A test of someone’s or the public’s reaction
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Trip the Light Fantastic
Meaning: Dance well; do ballroom dancing