Idioms > Ιδιωματισμοί (EN > EL)

Severus

Active member
can't hold a candle/a stick to someone/something = δεν πιάνω μια μπροστά σε κάποιον, κάποιος είναι εκτός συναγωνισμού, ασυναγώνιστος
These pop bands that you hear nowadays can't hold a candle to the groups we used to listen to in the sixties.
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/candle
 

Severus

Active member
in the swim of things = μέσα στα πράγματα, μέρος των εξελίξεων
(*Typically: be ~; get [into]~.)
I've been ill, but soon I'll be back in the swim of things. I can't wait to settle down and get into the swim of things.

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/in+the+swim+of+things

ODE:
I loved being part of the madness of the rush hour commute - it made me feel in the swim, connected to the rest of the world, part of everyday society.
Hearing aids will put you back in the swim again.
It's good to be back in the swim of things!
 

Severus

Active member
trip the light fantastic = λικνίζω το κορμί μου, Facetious. to go dancing.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trip+the+light+fantastic

This apparently obscure expression originates from the works of John Milton. In the masque Comus, 1637, he used the lines:

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground,
In a light fantastic round.

By 'trip', Milton didn't mean 'catch one's feet and stumble'. The word had long been used to mean 'dance nimbly'. Chaucer used it that way as early as 1386, in The Miller's Tale:

In twenty manere koude he trippe and daunce. (In twenty ways could he trip and dance.)

Clearly, Milton was referring to dancing. He must have liked the imagery, as he used it again in the poem L'Allegro, 1645:

Sport that wrinkled Care derives,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe.

The 'light fantastic toe' was the form that was used when the phrase first circulated, as in this extract from The Times, November 1803:

"A splendid ball was also given; where the CONSUL himself tripped it on the light fantastic toe."


http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/trip-the-light-fantastic.html
 

Severus

Active member
put a damper on someone/something= αποθαρρύνω, κόβω τη φόρα/τον ενθουσιασμό, παραλύω, χαλώ
The bad news really put a damper on everything.
The rainy weather put a damper on our picnic.
Steve lost his wallet so that rather put a damper on the evening.
We were both ill while we were in Boston, which put a bit of a dampener on things.

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/put+a+damper+on
 
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