Test your knowledge of these and other food idioms.
Idiom Questions ~ Summer
Foods
1. Our company needs to make more money. I hope our new marketing plans ___ fruit.
A. grow
B. bear
C. make
D. produce
Food Idiom: bear fruit, v. phr., to have results. “Bear” means “to produce” or “give birth to.” This idiom brings the idea of trees producing fruit to things that people do.
→ Our efforts to clean up the park bore fruit—look at how clean it is!
2. Carla opened an ice cream stand on the beach, and her chocolate-covered strawberries sold like ___ cakes.
A. sweet
B. cool
C. hot
D. rich
Food Idiom: go/sell like hot cakes, v. phr., to sell a lot of something quickly and make a lot of money. This idiom pictures hot cakes, or pancakes, being sold quickly at a fair or other public event.
3. Complimenting the boss won’t help you get a day off. Sweet ___ won’t work. But she does have a sweet ___. Try giving her candy.
A. telling, talk
B. talk, tooth
C. tell, tongue
D. teeth, thumb
Food Idioms:
• sweet talk, n. phr., compliments, sometimes to get someone to do
something. The verb is sweet-talk.
→ Don’t sweet-talk me!
• sweet tooth, a love of sugary foods.
→ Ooh, cake. I have a sweet tooth.
4. Our boss likes to ___ customers. She takes someone out to
lunch or dinner almost every day.
A. red carpet
B. welcome mat
C. wine and dine
D. treat and train
Food Idiom: wine and dine, v. phr., to entertain someone, to treat someone to a meal. This idiom is commonly used in business → wine and dine customers. “Dine” is a verb meaning “to eat.”
→ We’ll be dining on fine food tonight.
5. Best Response
A: I want two hot dogs, a hamburger, barbecued chicken, french fries, ice cream …
B: ___.
A. All food is medicine
B. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach
C. You’re biting off more than you can chew
D. You reap what you sow
Food Idiom: (one’s) eyes are bigger than (one’s) stomach, clause, a person wants more than he or she can eat. This is a good idiom for when you take your kids to a restaurant, and they want to order too much food.
→ I think your eyes are bigger than your stomach.
6. If we want to save money, we need to
eat ___ more, eat ___ less, and eat ___ food we buy so we don’t waste any.
Fill in the blanks with: on, in, up, out, over
Food Idioms:
• eat in, phrasal verb, to eat at home.
• eat out, phrasal verb, to eat away from home, at a restaurant.
• eat up, phrasal verb, to eat all of something.
7. Kara needs a new laptop. Her old one just doesn’t ___ for a university student.
A. fit the bill
B. cut the mustard
C. spill the beans
D. hold the water
Food Idioms:
• cut the mustard, v. phr., to perform well enough; satisfactory. Often used in the negative.
→ This old dictionary doesn’t cut the mustard.
• fit the bill, v. phr., to be just what is needed.
→ I think I fit the bill for this job.
8. All the swimmers were nervous before the swimming race, but not Barry. He was cool as a ___.
A. pickle
B. custard
C. cucumber
D. carrot
Food Idiom: cool as a cucumber, adj. phr., to stay calm, even under pressure. This is a simile (Adj. as a N.). “Cool” also means “calm.” And on a hot day, the center of a cucumber stays cooler than the air.
→ Look at our professor. She’s always cool as a cucumber.
9. I heard through the ___ that Kate is becoming our new
manager. My colleagues were all talking about it.
A. field
B. orchard
C. custard
D. grapevine
Food Idiom: hear through the grapevine, v. phr., to hear
something from others who were told, to hear through gossip.
→ “Where’d you hear that?” “I heard it through the grapevine.”
10. Chocolate-covered strawberries are so delicious that they
___.
A. melt in your mouth
B. gobble right up
C. whet your meal
D. go out of your mind
Food Idiom: melt in (one’s) mouth, v. phr., to taste delicious. This idiom is used often in advertising today, but it is an old phrase, going back to at least 1693.
→ May’s fruit pie melts in your mouth.
11. The smell of food on the barbecue made everyone’s ___.
A. appetite whet
B. mouth water
C. nose thirsty
D. tongue click
Food Idiom: make (one’s) mouth water, v. phr., to make someone want to eat something. This idiom goes back to the 1600s.
→ The sight of the restaurant’s desserts made Helen’s mouth water.
12. When Ian said he could do the job alone, he was biting off more than he could chew. This means Ian ___.
A. was taking too much work
B. wasn’t taking enough
C. doesn’t like to work with others
D. has a large mouth
Food Idiom: bite off more than (one) can chew, v. phr., to take
on more work than one can handle. This idiom brings the idea of biting off too
much food to work.
→ When Ian said he could do the job
alone, he was biting off more than he could chew.
13. Janice went ___ when she heard the
good news. She was very happy.
A. grapes
B. bananas
C. pickles
D. lemons
Food Idiom: go bananas, v. phr., to become excited and act crazy. The phrase probably comes from monkeys, which might act crazy while eating bananas. Similar: go nuts and go ape. Also, to drive
(someone) bananas/nuts means “to make the person crazy.”
14. Tim said my new sports car is ugly, but I think that’s just sour ___.
A. lemons
B. limes
C. grapes
D. apples
Food Idiom: sour grapes, n. phr., used when someone says bad things about something because they can’t have it. The phrase comes from a Greek fable about a fox that cannot reach some grapes, and then says they are sour.
→ Connie’s comments about Jim’s new house was just a case of sour grapes; she was jealous.
Next Week’s Topic: English at Sea—Idioms and Vocabulary for Ships, Boats, and the Sea.
If you’re lucky you might be going on a cruise this summer, or going boating at a lake or going deep-sea fishing.
For safety, make sure you run a tight ship, and whatever you do, don’t rock the boat.
Learn these and other idioms this coming week as we focus on English at Sea.
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