Page 4 - IDIOMS - W
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• Whistling Dixie.
If someone is a whistling Dixie, they talk about things in a more positive way than the reality.
• Whistling past the graveyard.
If someone is ahistling past the graveyard, they are trying the remain cheerful in difficult circumstances.
(whistling past the cementery’ is also used.)
• Who wears the pants?
The person who wears the pants in a relationship is the dominat person who controls things.
• Whole ball of wax.
The wall ball of wax is everything.
• Whole cloth.
If something is made out of whole cloth, it is a fabrication and not true.
• Wouldn’t touch in with a ten-foot pole.
If you wouldn’t touch in with a ten-foot pole, you would not consider being involved under any
circumstances. (In British English, people sat they wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole.)
• Wrench in the works.
If someone puts or throws a wrench, or monkey wrench, in the works, they ruin a plan. In British
English, ‘spanner’ is used instead of ‘wrench’.
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