A source, who is familiar with the illegal trading of Indonesian antiquities, said that European collectors would go “the extra mile” to get their hands on Indonesian collections.>>
LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED: take all possible measures in order to achieve something. Independent (UK): <<A coroner has vowed to leave “no stone unturned” in the search for the truth about how a Red Arrows pilot was killed ejecting from an aircraft while it was still on the ground.
Pressure on the elite Red Arrows team to perform as frequently as possible will be among the factors investigated as possible causes of the death of Flight Lieutenant Sean Cunningham in November 2011.>>
TheStreet.com: <<Chide the ivory tower all you want, but you can't accuse professors of creating "click bait" to generate "page views." Academics aren't in the business of getting page views.>>
The IVORY TOWER means universities, academia in general.
CLICK BAIT is a sensational headline or photo on the Internet designed to attract viewers to a site. "Click bait" is quite new; this writer puts it in quotation marks, but others would not.
A FULL-COURT PRESS: In basketball, a full-court press occurs when defensive players guard the offensive players for the entire length of the court rather than just at the basket end. Idiomatically, it means a strong attack on all fronts. I think this idiom is primarily North American.
To REST ON ONE'S LAURELS is to be satisfied with past achievements instead of continuing to work hard on new projects. This one is used everywhere.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE: into unknown territory. The expression suggests that you are getting lost in complexities of something. Although this expression comes from the book "Alice in Wonderland," it looks to me as though it is used more often in North America than in Britain. Dallas Observer:
<<At Plano's Chennai, a Magical Trip Down the Indian - Food Rabbit Hole
If you're not well versed, you could get lost in the ingredients required to make just one Indian curry. Scores of them can be featured in a single recipe, and one state in India offers enough dishes to keep you guessing for years. Start eating your way through the country's different regions and the culinary soup gets even murkier. >>
GO OVER LIKE A LEAD BALLOON: not be at all favorably received. Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette: <<CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- As the governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Highways tries to finalize proposals to come up with about $600 million a year additional funding for the state Road Fund -- or about a 60 percent increase over current funding -- one proposal may be to float a new round of road bonds.
(In 2012, Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox pitched a $1 billion road bond amendment to the Legislature, and it went over like a lead balloon.)>>
PULL THE PLUG ON: put an end to, disable. A rather unpleasant idiom—its literal meaning is to disconnect a life-support system in a hospital. But the idiomatic meaning is more common. National Public Radio (U.S.): "The party of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been a partner in Italy's fragile coalition government. But Berlusconi threatened to pull the plug on that government yesterday."
Three idioms in one sentence from the Yorkshire Evening Post (UK), about debate over a new police station! A BOBBY (this is UK only) is a policeman. A police officer ON HIS OR HER BEAT or ON THE BEAT is an officer who is patrolling an area on foot. OLD HAT is old-fashioned, predictable, trite. So ... <<Big is beautiful, they say, and now the bobby on the beat is classed as old hat.>>
Note that "old hat" is usually used as a predicate adjective, after a verb or conjunction, not before a noun. You could say that sales of the iPhone are falling because in the eyes of many buyers it is old hat, but you would generally not say "the old-hat phone."
➤ Book of Idioms
➤ Idioms about Animals
➤ Idioms of Expression
➤ Idioms on Food
➤ Idiomatic Expressions
➤ Origin of Idioms
➤ Proverbs
➤ Idioms on Situation
➤ Idioms on Temperature
