Idioms using Food – 4

polish the apple

MEANING: flatter someone

EXAMPLE: Nobody likes her because she is always trying to polish the apple with her teacher.

souped up

MEANING: change something to make it faster or more powerful by changing or adding something

EXAMPLE: The new car that his neighbor bought is a souped up model of the one that he had last year.

salt away

MEANING: save money
EXAMPLE: He has been working there for seven years and has been able to salt away quite a lot of money.

sell like hotcakes
MEANING: sell quickly or rapidly
EXAMPLE: The new CD has only been released for about a week but already it is selling like hotcakes.

spill the beans
MEANING: tell a secret to someone who is not supposed to know about it
EXAMPLE: Please don’t spill the beans about my plans to quit working and go back to school next year.

stew in one’s own juice
MEANING: suffer from something that one has caused to happen
EXAMPLE: He is the one who caused the problem for himself and is now being forced to stew in his own juice.

take with a grain of salt
MEANING: accept or believe only part of something
EXAMPLE: You should take everything that he says with a grain of salt as everyone knows that he likes to exaggerate things when he is speaking.

upset the applecart
MEANING: ruin a plan or event by surprise or accident
EXAMPLE: Everything was going well at the company until he came along and upset the apple cart.
 
worth one’s salt
MEANING: being a good worker, worth what one is paid
EXAMPLE: He has only been working here for a month but over and over he has proved that he is worth his salt.

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Posted in Fast Speech