Question

idiom As a teacher of foreign students, you can't use idioms like “Beats me!” and “Don't jump the gun” in class unless you want to confuse everyone. ˈɪdiəm

Accepted Answer

An expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but must be learned as a whole. If you had never heard someone say “We're on the same page,” would you have understood that they weren't talking about a book? And the first time someone said he'd “ride shotgun,” did you wonder where the gun was? A modern English-speaker knows thousands of idioms, and uses many every day. Idioms can be completely ordinary (“first off,” “the other day,” “make a point of,” “What's up?”) or more colorful (“asleep at the wheel,” “bite the bullet,” “knuckle sandwich”). A particular type of idiom, called a phrasal verb , consists of a verb followed by an adverb or preposition (or sometimes both); in make over, make out, and make up, for instance, notice how the meanings have nothing to do with the usual meanings of over, out, and up

word	idiom
definition	An expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but must be learned as a whole.
eg_sentence	As a teacher of foreign students, you can't use idioms like “Beats me!” and “Don't jump the gun” in class unless you want to confuse everyone.
explanation	If you had never heard someone say “We're on the same page,” would you have understood that they weren't talking about a book? And the first time someone said he'd “ride shotgun,” did you wonder where the gun was? A modern English-speaker knows thousands of idioms, and uses many every day. Idioms can be completely ordinary (“first off,” “the other day,” “make a point of,” “What's up?”) or more colorful (“asleep at the wheel,” “bite the bullet,” “knuckle sandwich”). A particular type of idiom, called a phrasal verb , consists of a verb followed by an adverb or preposition (or sometimes both); in make over, make out, and make up, for instance, notice how the meanings have nothing to do with the usual meanings of over, out, and up
IPA	ˈɪdiəm

Meanings Make Understood Idioms Verb Expression Separate Words