• ho-hum | Industry says ho-hum to Netscape suit [newsline caption in 2002-01, where AOL sued Microsoft over web browser.]
• drop-dead | It's relatively simple to understand although a tad clumsy at times... None of them are drop-dead simple. (programer Jon Frisby, on unix version control softwares (CVS, PRCS, RCS, SCCS, ...))
• gross-out | Crowds went wild for the gross-out humor and wacky romance in this riotous comedy. [describing the movie Something About Mary (1999)]
• double-cross | Left for dead after a heist double-cross, bad, bad man Mel Gibson returns for revenge in this gritty-yet-glossy remake of John Boorman's psycho-noir classic Point Blank. [describing the movie Payback (1999)]
• put-up | There was a young lady named Bright, Who traveled much faster than light. She started one day, In the relative way, And returned on the previous night. When they questioned her, answered Miss Bright, “I was there when I got home that night; So I slept with myself, Like two shoes on a shelf, Put-up relatives shouldn't be tight!”. limerick by J.A.Lindon. There was a young couple named Bright, Who could make love much faster than light. They started one day, In the relative way, And came on the previous night.
• strung-out | Sam has to contend with managing the bosses' skim going out the back door, cheats at the tables, the law breathing down his neck, and strung-out hustler Ginger (Sharon Stone), whom Sam falls for, and, despite his better judgment, eventually marries.[about the movie Casino 1995]
• in-kind | ...About 60 % of all poor households receive in-kind transfers...
• cast-off | ...gave him a cast-off coat which was too large for him...
• stage-struck | For years she had been what is called stage-struck.
• fuddy-duddies | [synthetic language as an lingua franca] have the disadvantage that they are associated with fuddy-duddies.
• fly-leaf | ...she gave me a Bible, and wrote her favourite texts on the fly-leaf.
• run-ins | Mitnick's run-ins with the law began as a teenager, ...
• have-nots | City grocery stores are exacting a steep toll on the have-nots.
• hanger-on | Attempting to portray Shipp as a mendacious hanger-on and frustrated actor with a drinking problem, attorney Carl Douglas accused the witness of ...
• ad-libbed | When he was showing how a NeXT workstation could be used to query a database that ran on another company's server, the NeXT machine crashed. Jobs ad-libbed gamely, “That's how you know it was live.”.
• mock-up | ...so the champion of Framemaker sat down and said that he would work on a mock-up.
• forward-looking | But now the 16th century collection of forward-looking musings [Leonardo Da Vinci's manuscript Codex] has landed in the possession of a soul Leonardo might have found more kindred [brought by Bill Gates].
• washed-up | At 44, he looked like a washed-up playboy.
• last-ditch | A last-ditch effort gets food to orbiting cosmonauts, saving their mission from a disastrous early end.
• derring-do | Superficially, ENTPs resemble ESTPs in their derring-do.
• blue-chip | They [Japanese companies] had faith in American landmarks, a faith in American blue-chip names.
• booby-trap | Two more booby-trapped houses, primed to erupt in flames at a telephone call. [Time Magazine 1994-10-24 By Michael S. Serrill, here: http://www.rickross.com/reference/S_Groups6.html local copy here: local copy.]
• roly-poly | a roly-poly guy who resembled the cop in the film ...
• Jekyll-and-Hyde | For years, she has played a Jekyll and Hyde game...
• heavy-handed | the heavy-handed marketing campaign, ...
• witch-hunt | was that Oppenheimer had been railroaded and ruined by the witch-hunters.
• grass-roots | The grass-roots campaign to slip prayer back into school is ...
• card-carrying | As a card-carrying feminist, I ...
• skinny-dip | skinny-dipping with her.
• cloak-and-dagger | Lined up on one side are the three-letter cloak-and-dagger agencies-the NSA (National Security Agency), the CIA and the FBI....
• plea-bargain | By plea-bargaining her [Tonya Harding] way out of the tangle, ... [Time Mag?]
• gavel-to-gavel | ...covered live [on TV] and virtually gavel-to-gavel.
• free-for-all | brawl, broil, donnybrook, fracas, fray, melee, row, ruction
• cul-de-sac | dead end.
• bric-a-brac | trumpery
• about-face | She made another startling about-face.
• union-jack | The UK flag. US flag's nickname is Old-Glory, Star'n'Strips, Star-spangled banner. (see also: Babes of the Union Jack)
• go-for-broke | With the go-for-broke enthusiasm of youngsters trying out new toys, scientists are uncovering the mysteries of the brain with technology.
• pell-mell | soldiers retreat in a pell-mell fashion
• whizz-bang | The browsers were at the plug-ins era, and client-side java being the whiz-bang of the time. Network-computing utopia was also jazzed about, as well as Virtual Reality web stuff like VRML. [Xah Lee memorial on technology ~1996, 2002-01 online]
• avant-garde | the Joker character in Batman considers himself to be an avant-garde artist.
• all-out | an all-out baby-making night!
• point-blank | he was executed point-blank
• scot-free | Vandals got away scot-free
• lock-step | soldiers march in lock-step
• hocus-pocus | hocus-pocus over my dead corpse. [a retort]
• pent-up | [that is a] Vacuous opinion touched up with dumb presentation jacked up with a pent-up wrangled anal-ogy in the fashion of wishful thinkers. [retort to a paragraph of newsgroup posting by Xah Lee (com.lang.lisp, 2000/07)]
• word-of-mouth | product that got popular by word-of-mouth is usually better than pop products of advertisements.
• tug-of-war | “Don't wear rollerskates to a tug-of-war.” [attributed to computer programer Larry Wall.]
• silver-tongued | You've charmed us all, you silver-tongued devil. [newsgroup post (rec.music.classical) by Kip Williams, 2000-06]
• stand-in
• namby-pamby
• self-effacing
• five-and-ten
• blue-stocking
• tongue-in-cheek
• off-the-cuff
• high-minded
• second-string
• Rank-and-file
• court-martial
• topsy-turvy
• per-diem
• well-nigh | “that's well-nigh impossible!”
• pre-empt
• run-of-the-mill
• hard-liner
• shell-shock
• half-mast
• jerry-builder
• up-and-coming
• hugger-mugger
• helter-skelter
• hurly-burly
Page Created:1995. © 1995-2005 by Xah Lee.