As an ESL student, common English idioms are important when you’re starting to learn English. Of course a lot of idioms can be regional. For example, there are idioms that are mostly used just in the United Kingdom, just in Australia, or just in North America. So to help, we’ve gathered idioms that you can use in most of the English-speaking world and we’ve sorted them in a way that we hope makes learning English idioms fun and memorable.
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English Idioms from Body Parts

First we are going to share six English idioms that use body parts. Whether it’s your eyes, ears, shoulders, arms, stomach or legs, we’ve got idioms that to help you express yourself in English in a colorful way. Some of the idioms are intuitive while a few of them may keep you wondering about their meaning. So we'll explain them to you as well.‍

To be all ears - This one should be easy to understand. We hear with our ears. If you are ‘all ears’ you eagerly want to hear what others are around you are saying. It means to be listening attentively.

‍To be all thumbs - This one might not be so obvious to beginning English speakers. Imagine if your hands only had thumbs and no index finger, middle finger, ring finger or little finger. If this would be the case, you would not have a lot of dexterity would you? To be all thumbs is to be clumsy or awkward, even at things that may not require the use of your hands.

‍To cost an arm and a leg - This one is probably pretty obvious, even to newbies to learning English. You’re wouldn’t want to part with your arm nor your leg. Imagine the price you would have to pay to get somebody to part with both an arm and a leg. Expensive!

‍Eyes bigger than your stomach - Another easy one, even for beginners. If your eyes are bigger than your stomach, you are piling too much food onto your plate. You start eating, but just can't manage to eat all that food you piled onto your plate. You’ve already eaten enough before being able to clear your plate and now you'll probably just end up wasting the extra food.

‍Give the cold shoulder - This one may not be so easy for beginning ESL students. A ‘cold shoulder’ is a cool reception. Imagine if you gave a ‘cold shoulder’ to somebody. That would mean that you would prefer to ignore them, not listen to them, not see them, not speak to them, or not acknowledge them….or all of the above.

‍Shoulder to cry on - Consider that shoulder is also used in the expression’ ‘shoulder to cry on’. Offering your shoulder to somebody to ‘cry on’ would mean you listen sympathetically to somebody’s problems.
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English Idioms Inspired by Mother Nature

Now we’ll share some inspirations from nature that give us more English idioms for you to ponder.

‍Once in a blue moon - a ‘blue moon’ is not literally blue. It means that a full moon occurs twice in the same month. Considering that most months have 30 or 31 days and the cycle of a moon is four weeks, that means that the full moon must take place at the beginning of the month to occur again within the same month. Since this is a rare phenomenon, the expression, ‘once in a blue moon’ came about to mean something that doesn’t happen very often. For fans of learning Italian, the expression is ‘once every death of a pope’ which seems to happen even more rarely than a blue moon.

‍Tip of the iceberg - It’s no wonder an iceberg sank the Titanic. You can only see a tiny bit of it above the surface of the water. That’s why some people also use it as a metaphor to explain the attributes of a culture. You can see a few things above the surface, such as music, food, language, and such, but it takes time to learn about what is below the surface. The ‘tip of the iceberg’ is just a tiny part of the whole, or the big picture.

‍Break the ice - This one is quite visual. Picture people you don’t know stuck in a block of ice. You need to ‘break the ice’ in order to begin a conversation with them. An ‘icebreaker’ in this sense is an exercise where people start to get to know one another or a conversation starter.

‍Steal your thunder - For this one you might picture yourself in the position of Zeus, the supreme god with his thunderbolts. If somebody stole your thunderbolts, you would have lost one of your key powers as Zeus. This English idiom means somebody grabs all the attention from you and receives the recognition for a job that you deserve recognition for.
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English Idioms from Things People Make or Do

Basket case - This English idiom means that somebody is hopeless or useless.

‍Couch potato - Somebody who doesn’t exercise and who lies or sits around on the couch all day long and watches TV and eats junk food in front of the TV is known as a couch potato.

‍Hit the nail on the head - You use this English idiom when somebody gets something right or when they understand the main point.

‍Spin your wheels - This visual idiom is an easy one to understand. Picture a car stuck in the mud that is spinning its wheels, not going anywhere. This idiom means to expend your energy without obtaining any results.

‍Have a blast - This idiom may come across as bizarre, because usually we think of blasts as explosive and destructive. But to ‘have a blast’ is an idiom to have fun, to have a great time, to enjoy oneself.
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English Idioms from Inspired by Animals and Humans

Now we’re on to idioms that use animals, including humans in their visual imagery.

‍Elephant in the room - This is a visual English idiom. If there really were an elephant in a room with people standing around, it would feel rather obvious and awkward. Now picture that nobody even talked about the elephant. Nobody wants to talk about the elephant because it’s too awkward. So people use this idiom is when there is something that is an issue, but people don’t want to talk about it because it is too awkward.

‍Kill two birds with one stone - To accomplish two things at the same time.

‍Screw the pooch - A pooch is an informal word for dog. This idiom means to bungle something up. To make a mess of things.

‍Preach to the choir - To tell people about something who are already in agreement with your argument.‍

Snug as a bug in a rug - To be very comfortable
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English Idioms from Inspired by Measurements and Units

The whole nine yards - everything

‍Twenty four seven - every day, all day. Nonstop.

‍Read between the lines - to understand the meaning of a subtle message

Which of these is your favorite English idiom? Are there some you've already heard before? You might have seen a couple of them on our post about common English idioms

Which do you feel will be the most useful English idiom to insert into your conversations?