* to no avail: without having success
ex>
We kept trying to start the car to no avail: it was out of gas.
* abhor: to hate or detest; regard with
disgust
ex>
I abhor the way some people throw their trash on the ground.
* back in the saddle: resuming an
activity that one had stopped doing
ex>
Having recovered from his ankle injury, the center fielder is back in the
saddle again.
* up to one’s eyeballs: receiving an
excessive amount of something
ex>
We’ve been up to our eyeballs with new orders ever since our website was
launched.
Note>
Some variations of this phrase are “up to
one’s neck” or “up to one’s ears”
in something.
* berate: to scold or criticize someone
angrily
ex>
My mom berated me for not taking out the trash when she asked me to.
ex>
A bad boss berates new employees for making mistakes; a good one
encourages and guides them.
* a few bricks short of a load: not
intelligent; showing signs of flawed reasoning
ex>
His behavior after our breakup made me realize he was a few bricks short of
a load.
* pick up: “Pick up” has many meanings in
English. As well as “responding to an incoming phone call,” it can mean to buy
or gather something in a quick or casual way. The hyphenated form, “pick-up,”
means something that improves one’s health or spirits. This spelling was also
formerly used to describe a small truck with an open back, but now the more
common spelling for that is “pickup.”
ex>
I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour. Why didn’t you pick up?
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