Table 2 Themes of Oxford Dictionary of Idioms index
From: A thematic corpus-based study of idioms in the Corpus of Contemporary American English
Theme | Idioms |
|---|---|
Action | 28 |
Age | 20 |
Ambition | 12 |
Anger and annoyance | 37 |
Anxiety and worry | 20 |
Appearance | 23 |
Argument and conflict | 32 |
Beauty | 12 |
Boastfulness and conceit | 17 |
Bribery, corruption, and extortion | 19 |
Caution | 18 |
Certainty | 17 |
Change | 24 |
Chaos and disorder | 25 |
Class | 13 |
Clothes | 11 |
Cooperation | 26 |
Courage | 18 |
Crime and punishment | 20 |
Crisis | 19 |
Critics and criticism | 24 |
Danger | 25 |
Death | 29 |
Debt | 11 |
Deception and lying | 25 |
Doubt and uncertainty | 10 |
Duty and responsibility | 13 |
Embarrassment, shame, and humiliation | 18 |
Equality | 15 |
Excess and extravagance | 21 |
Expense | 19 |
Experience | 17 |
Family | 18 |
Fate and chance | 8 |
Food | 15 |
Fools and foolishness | 19 |
Foresight and the future | 7 |
Forgiveness and reconciliation | 10 |
Futility | 30 |
Gossip and rumor | 8 |
Happiness, pleasure, and enjoyment | 33 |
Haste and speed | 32 |
Health and illness | 15 |
Honesty | 14 |
Hope and optimism | 14 |
Hypocrisy | 8 |
Indecision and prevarication | 13 |
Intelligence and knowledge | 16 |
Jealousy and envy | 7 |
Justice | 10 |
Language, speech, and conversation | 22 |
Laziness | 9 |
Love | 14 |
Madness | 19 |
Marriage | 8 |
Misfortune and adversity | 39 |
Mistakes | 18 |
Money, wealth, and prosperity | 27 |
Opportunity | 29 |
Poverty | 15 |
Power | 28 |
Pregnancy | 7 |
Preparation and readiness | 26 |
Reputation and fame | 15 |
Revenge and retribution | 16 |
Secrecy | 29 |
Self-interest | 25 |
Strength | 18 |
Success | 30 |
Surprise | 13 |
Thoroughness | 14 |
Time | 19 |
Traitors and treachery | 17 |
Travel and transport | 24 |
Unhappiness and disappointment | 17 |
Violence | 18 |
Warfare | 12 |
Weakness | 16 |
Weather | 9 |
Work and employment | 27 |
Youth | 11 |