The Penguin Dictionary of English Idioms (4,000+ Idioms) (Penguin Reference Books)

In my job as a copywriter, this has turned out to be a pretty useful book. It's packed full of the sayings or 'Idioms' you've been hearing all your life, and is organised in a way that's intuitive and easy to use. It'll save you time wracking your brains for ideas when you write, as well as explain to you exactly what sayings like 'give a dog a bad name and hang him' (for example) mean.Each entry gives an explanation and example of use, and all entries are organised in categories for extra easy reference - which are: Colours, Elements, Weather, Time, Life & Death, Trees & Plants, Animals, Birds, Fish, Insects, Body, Mind, Illness & Ailments, Relations, Town & Around, The House, Furniture & Household Articles, Food, Clothes, Ships, The World And Its Places, Languages & Nationalities, Names, Monarchy & Parliament, War & Peace, Weapons, Tools, Numbers, School & Education, Work & Occupations, Money & Valuables, Games & Sports, Music & Theatre, Word & Words.So, if you're writing a piece on a certain subject (for instance I was writing something the other based on colours) you can simply flick to that section a find all the sayings and idioms you could ever want to on the subject. Also, there is an index so you can look up individual words - this too is laid out in a way that is very quick and easy to use. For example, let's suppose you need a saying that uses the word 'String'. A quick glance in the index and you will see:String, a second string to one's bow 258/1; harp on the same s.315/10; have someone on a s. 320/13So you see, you not only get a list of all the saying in the book that use the word string (so you don't have to look up each one individually), you also get directions to the entries should you find a saying you're not familiar with and are unsure what it means... Again, taking the above example - I'm sure most of us are familiar with the idioms and meanings of ' a second string to one's bow' and 'to have someone on a string', but what about 'harp on the same string'?A quick flick to page 315 - and a read of entry number 10 on that page reveals:10. to harp on the same string - to make the same point over and over again. 'I wish you wouldn't harp on the same string every time I light a cigarette. I know smoking is bad for your health but I won't give up!'All in all, a worthwhile and very useful and accessible tool for working writers or people with an interest or love of language. Around 377 pages in length I can see this getting as much use as my Rhyming Dictionary - another item I couldn't live with out: Collins Rhyming DictionaryThe front cover of this book sums it up nicely... from cloud nine to seventh heaven.

For English learners, especially those who are learning English as a second language, learning idioms is one of the most difficult tasks. You can learn grammar, reading, writing etc., but learning 'real' English involves a wider range of vocabulary and expressions, and idioms are part of this. But this book can provide all the useful idioms (when and how to use them), so it'll be useful to all English learners.The only minor criticism I can point out is that if you don't have a native teacher, you might be learning some of the very old-fashioned expressions that people in the street no longer use today. So if you have a native teacher, you can ask him/her if the expression you're looking at is useful or not. If you start saying 'I say, old boy, how are you?' and so on, they might find you funny because it's an expression only in costume dramas on TV. But never mind - you can make small errors and that's not a problem. You can learn from making mistakes too!

Great little book keeping these idioms alive

Fun, and good learning.

True to its name, this book gives plenty of English idioms with definitions, examples of use in a sentence and a clue as to their tone where necessary. Under "dry as a bone" it defines normal use and suggests the humorous application when someone wants an alcoholic drink very badly but, if you forget where this idiom is, it is hard to find it again in the index because it appears under "bone" but not under "dry." The index is necessary because the editor/authors have decided to group the idioms in sections rather than merely alphabetically: colours, weather, time, life and death etc. The index needed to find a particular idiom takes several pages and is incomplete, as I have suggested. I am not sure which reader would require this arrangement: a writer on a certain topic would not need a list of cliches and a student of English would want the most direct route to an expression. There are bound to be omissions but I was surprised that, with four definitions of 'hot spot' (not listed in the index so I couldn't find it to check that I am right), it didn't give the wi-fi meaning, surely now very common. I think this is more a book to read, savour and enjoy rather than a reference tool.

I bought this as a Christmas present for a colleague from Afghanistan who loves to learn more about the culture and language in the UK. He was over the moon and didn't know books like this existed. The book is well structured and easy to reference, very well presented and easy for a non native speaker to understand. Really worth the purchase

Excellent book. Highly recommended. Wouldn't be without it.

As described