List of British idioms

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This list comprises idioms that originated and are in common use in British English, and that are often regarded as "Briticisms".

Caveat lector

Many of the items in this list are highly vernacular, quickly obsolescent, age-specific, and/or regional expressions, which foreigners might be best served by avoiding.

For a list of words commonly used in English as spoken in the British Isles but not in American English see List of British words not widely used in the United States.

As straight as a roundabout

• Homosexual (insulting)

A good seeing to

• energetic sexual intercourse
• a sound beating

As much use as a

• chocolate fireguard (or teapot, or mantlepiece)
• teats (or tits) on a bull
• wet fart in a thunderstorm
• one-legged man in an arse kicking contest
• fat man in a canoe
• condom machine in the Vatican
• ashtray on a motorbike

Useless.

As rare as Rocking-horse shit Military term

non-existent, hard to come by, (note: RHS on its own also means a lie [also used in the east end of London])

At the end of the day

finally; taking everything into account; when all is said and done

Away with the faeries

not concentrating, distracted, daydreaming.

Barking (mad)

insane, idiotic.

BBC English

the version of Received Pronunciation (said "R.P.") once considered typical of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Today regional dialects are frequently heard on the BBC.

Big girl's blouse

ineffectual or weak, someone failing to show masculine strength or determination

Birmingham (or Irish) screwdriver, Birmingham spanner

a hammer

Bent as a nine-bob note

• crooked, or
• homosexual (insulting)

in both case referring to pre-decimal UK currency, a 10 bob (10/-) note being perfectly ordinary (see below for similar use).

Built like a brick shit house

• More often than not referring to a person rather than a thing, it suggests that the person is extremely strong or muscular or heavy.

Bully for you

• Good for you!
• Something that you say when you do not think what someone has done deserves praise or admiration, although they think it does.

"Devils on horseback"

prunes wrapped in bacon

Dog's dinner, as in "It's a complete dog's dinner"

a mess, chaotic.

Egg-cosy or -cozy

meal-time egg warmer, usually knitted.

Fart/fuck/piss about

to be silly, idiotic

[it's a] game of two halves

literally, a football match in which the two halves had very different characters; metaphorically, roughly equivalent to "It ain't over 'til it's over"

Gardening leave

enforced leave after an employee has resigned, preventing them either from working a notice period or starting with a new employer. Intended to protect commercial confidentiality, the subject is assumed to have little to do but tend the garden

Gone for a Burton

dead/beyond repair/no longer viable. From an early set of commercials for Burton's Brewery that had the theme of a person missing from some scenario and a "Where's [Bob]?", "Gone for a Burton!" dialogue. The phrase was originally used when someone/thing was missing, now used when something is non-functional.

Had an accident, fallen over, suffered a mishap. Originating in the Royal Air Force, where it was (and is) said of a test pilot who had crashed and died that he had "gone for a Burton". His colleagues will drink his health that night, on his tab in the bar.

Gone tits / trotters up

gone wrong

Gone up the spout

gone wrong (usually when something carefully pre-planned has not gone as expected)

Gone west

disappeared or lost (a specific reference to people moving to the Americas)

Go pear-shaped

go wrong ("It all went pear-shaped"). Originating in the Royal Air Force.

He couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery

he can't organise even the simplest thing.

He's got more front than Selfridges/Brighton/Woolworths

is completely brazen/ full of self-confidence (reference to Oxford St department store or a famous seaside resort)

He ploughs his own furrow

he works on his own without reference to others.

He's tuppence short of a shilling or he's a sandwich short of a picnic

he's a bit simple, not all there.

Hit for six

to hit mightily, to trounce (to hit a cricket ball off the field without a bounce, scoring 6 runs)

Suffer a shock

Industrial action

strike or work-to-rule by employees

“[It's] all gone Pete Tong”

all gone wrong (new-ish rhyming slang)

“It/he/she went arse over tit/elbow.”

fell/tripped over (this phrase is commonly used in Northern parts of England).

Lovely jubbly

great outcome, popularised by a catchphrase in a BBC TV programme Only Fools and Horses.

Lower than a snakes belly in a submarines shit house

If someone has punched below the belt, done something dishonerable or "low". Also to describe something which is low down e.g. "That table is lower than a....."

Made redundant

of an employee: laid off, especially because no longer needed; similar to U.S. downsized

Mothers ruin (or possibly Mother's ruin)

Gin

Not cricket

not fair

Not much cop

• of no consequence
• poor (of an event or an item)

Nowt so queer as folk

people are unpredictable (Literally, "Nothing is so odd as are people", using the Northern English regional spelling "nowt" for "naught", meaning "nothing"). Or, that people have different tastes and ideas.

On the game; to go on the game

to work as a prostitute

On the lash, the tiles

out, drinking heavily with friends.

On the piss

drinking heavily (out for an evening, or in at home, at a specific time ("I was out on the piss last night") or in general ("Old George is on the piss again.")

askew

One Sandwich short of a picnic /One brick short of a load/ One can short of a six pack

Mentally dim/Not all there

Over-egging the pudding

making something more complicated than it need be

Pissing up the wall

wasting

Piss up

drinking session

Pukka

good, an expression from the days of the British Empire in India (pakka = ripe in Hindi).

Queer as a nine-bob note (archaic)

very strange, not normal

[He's been] sent to Coventry

[he's] being ignored.

Shanks's pony^{[dubious — see talk page]}

on foot, walking.

Swinging the lead

appearing to work, without actually making any real effort.

Swings and roundabouts

gains in one area will equal losses in another (short for "what you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts") (see also: Spoons and ladles, six of one and half a dozen of the other, six and two threes)

Taking the Piss

To make fun of (someone).

Tight as a duck's/crab's arse

Someone who is very reluctant to spend money.

Two stops beyond Barking. (Becontree)

extremely mad/insane/idiotic. Becontree station is two stops beyond Barking station on the District Line of the Underground going out of London. If you call somebody 'completely Becontree', you'd normally have to explain what you mean to others, but the allusion is usually appreciated, except by the victim.

Upset the apple cart

cause something organised to be rendered chaotic.

Weapon fist

A clenched fist, primed for fighting.

Muscle fart

Expelling wind through the anus with unnecessary force.

'Ave it (Have it)

Here's how it's done.