An idiom is an expression that takes on a figurative meaning when certain words are combined, which is different from the literal definition of the individual words. For example, let’s say I said: ‘Don’t worry, driving out to your house is a piece of cake. But in this context, it’s a well-known idiom.

: an expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but must be learned as a whole The expression “give up,” meaning “surrender,” is an idiom.

informal. : to be too expensive I want a new car that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

“When pigs fly” is an adynaton, a way of saying that something will never happen. The phrase is often used for humorous effect, to scoff at over-ambition.

If you say that something costs an arm and a leg, you mean that it is very expensive. A week at a health farm can cost an arm and a leg.

informal. : a very large amount of money It’s a reliable car, and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

informal. : in good physical condition : very healthy and strong I feel (as) fit as a fiddle this morning.

After the American Civil War, Congress enacted a special pension for soldiers who had lost both an arm and a leg. The phrase “cost an arm and a leg” begins to crop up in newspaper archives in 1901, referring to accidents and war injuries.

Beulah Karney

good luck

: holding one’s arm He showed up at the party with a young woman on his arm.

With one person’s arm linked around another’s; also, closely allied or intimate, as in Both couples walked arm in arm around the grounds of the estate, and This candidate is arm in arm with the party’s liberal wing.

phrase. If two people are walking arm in arm, they are walking together with their arms linked. He walked from the court arm in arm with his wife.

The Rules for the Gender of French Nouns: Why your Arm is Masculine but your Leg is Feminine and other Mysteries of the French Language.

un m. More French words for a.m.