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Popular Idioms and Usages Part M

By VJ
This is a series of popular idioms and usages in English world over. Please read the other parts until the Part L of this series.

  1. Make a beeline for: Move fast toward anything. John made a beeline for Jane.
  2. Make an offer he can’t refuse: Originated from Mario Puzo classic, The Godfather. It means “do as I say or die.”
  3. Make no bones about: To state something doubtlessly.
  4. The real McCoy: The original thing, not duplicate.
  5. Mea culpa: Latin meaning, “I am to be blamed.”
  6. Meet your Waterloo: To taste failure after so many successes.
  7. Men in suits: Businessmen or executives who follow a dress code. First used by John Lennon.
  8. Menage a trois: French meaning three people in sexual partnership.
  9. Mexican wave: A wave effect caused by people in stadia standing up and sitting back. Came to existence from 1986 football world cup in Mexico.
  10. Mickey Finn: Anesthetic mixed into one’s drink to make him unconscious.
  11. Mince pies: Eyes. Cockney rhyming slang.
  12. Mind your p’s and q’s: Check your language.
  13. Moaning Minnie: A habitual grumbler.
  14. Molotov cocktail: A homemade petrol bomb.
  15. Montezuma’s revenge: Diarrhea suffered by tourists when traveling to foreign locations. Came to existence after Montezuma, the 15th century emperor of Mexico.
  16. The full Monty: The whole thing.
  17. Mouth watering: Delicious.
  18. Moving the goalposts: Changing the target itself to gain advantage over the opponents.
  19. Much of a muchness: Very similar.
  20. Mumbo jumbo: Nonsense
  21. Mum’s the word: Speak nothing.

Please read the other parts of the series and voice your comments.

Copyright © Lenin Nair 2008
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