Introduction

Most of the world's languages have phrases or sentences that can not be understood literally. Even if you know all the words in a phrase and understand all the grammar of the phrase completely, the meaning may  still be elusive. A phrase or sentence of this type is said to be idiomatic. Many proverbs, informal phrases, and common say ings are idiomatic, and offer special problems to readers, writers, and language learners. his  dictionary is a collection of the idiomatic phrases and sentences that occur frequently in American English.

The idiomatic expressions in this dictionary are arranged according to theme. There is a list of themes on page vii. Writers and students seeking an idiomatic way of expressing something can easily find likely  andidates by using the themes to locate a selection of expressions.

There is an index on page 355 that allows the user to find a particular idiom by showing the theme under which the idiom is listed.