Weekly English Words with Alisha Clothes Idioms
Hi everybody. Welcome back to Weekly Words.
My name is Alisha, and today we’re going
to talk about clothes idioms. Okay, let’s
get started.
‘Beat the pants off someone’.
To beat someone severely, or to win against
someone easily in a race or a game. If you
do much better than somebody else in some
form of competition, you can use the phrase
‘beat the pants off’. In a sentence, “My
brother beat the pants off the competition
at the swimming meet last weekend”. “My
brother beat the pants of the competition
at the basketball game last week.” My brother
is a really skilled sportsman, it seems. James,
what’s up?
Next phrase is ‘burst at the seems’.
To ‘burst at the seams’. If you imagine
a shirt, or just something, when there’s
too much inside it, the seams of it kind of
go “aahhh”. They’re expanding too much,
and when there’s way too much of something
inside a piece of cloth, maybe the seam rips.
So this phrase means something that is too
full, or too crowded. In a sentence, “My
subway car was bursting at the seams, I could
barely breathe”.
The next on is ‘by the seat of one’s pants’.
I don’t know understand the history of this
phrase, but it means you’re able to do something
because you’re just really lucky. For example,
“I passed the test by the seat of my pants”.
Like, just out of pure luck.
Next is ‘to have something up one’s sleeve’.
Imagine a magician or something, when they
do tricks they pull flowers out of their jacket
pocket, or something like that, or out of
their sleeve. It means you have some kind
of plan ready, you’re prepared with something
that might be a little mischievous. So, let’s
see. In a sentence, “I knew my friend had
something up his sleeve for my birthday because
he was being really mysterious”? Okay.
Next! ‘Wear more than one hat’.
This is a good phrase. This phrase means you
have more than one responsibility. You have
more than one job, or you have a few different
roles in your life. The image is that you
change hats for each of your roles. “I wear
more than one hat in my current position.
I’m in charge of a few different departments
at my company”.
Alright, that’s the end of things. That’s
the end of clothes idioms. Thank you very
much for joining us. Give these a try and
we will see you again next week for more fun
information. Bye.