This
database is a comprehensive collection of all the American idioms and slang available.
American Idioms are many and varied. We hope you enjoy our collection. We are adding more all the time.
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Touch is a zone of the playing field in Rugby. Kicked to touch means the ball was put safely out of play. Idiomatic usage usually means a person has deftly avoided an issue in argument.
admit defeat, stop fighting (in a boxing match a towel is
thrown into the ring to admit defeat)
admit defeat, stop fighting (in a boxing match a towel is thrown into the ring to admit defeat)The candidate threw in the towel early in the evening of the election when it became impossible for her to win.
For the love of Pete, can we just pick a restaurant and stop searching? I am hungry. This phrase and phrases like "for Pete's sake" are euphemisms for the phrases "for the love of God/Christ" or "for God's/Christ's sake" and hail from a time when those phases were considered blasphemous. Nowadays phrases like "for the love of God" are commonly used, but the euphemisms are still used. Why Pete? Most likely it is a reference to the catholic Saint Peter.