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Meanings of phrases

Posted by Word Camel on February 07, 2002

In Reply to: Meanings of phrases posted by I****a Mehta on February 07, 2002

: Can some one please help me with the meaning of the following phrases ? Thank you

: all thumbs - clumsy, fumbling, dropping things. "No one was surprised when he dropped the baseball because he was known to be all thumbs."

: hat in hand - begging, humbly requesting a favour. "He returned hat in hand to his father when he discovered that none of the banks would lend him any money."

: twiddling your thumbs - to sit idly by doing nothing of importance as if playing with one's thumbs - though not necessarily literally doing it. "Don't just sit there twiddling your thumbs! Help me!"

: hanging by one's fingernails - to be at the very last point one can be at before having to give in or fail. "After years of putting off course work to attend parties, Austin found he was only hanging by his fingernails at the college."

: hand in hand - two things linked as in hand holding "Love is said to go hand in hand with marriage."

: by hand - Literally made by someone's hands as opposed to by machine. "My jumper was made entirely by hand."

: hands down - without a doubt or with no dispute. "She was so far in front of all the others he was forced to admit that she'd won hands down."

: all hands on deck - a call for everyone's cooperation, usually in a crisis. "When the server crashed, it was all hands on deck until we got it up and running again."

: Thank you

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