100+ Idioms that Start with Letter B with Meanings

In this blog post, you will learn 100+ idioms that start with the letter B, along with their meanings. Knowing these idioms helps you understand how native English speakers express ideas, feelings, and situations in creative ways. It also improves your speaking and writing skills because you can use idioms naturally in sentences and conversations. By studying examples, you can remember how to use each idiom correctly. Learning idioms that start with B will make your English more expressive and confident.

Table of Contents

Idioms that Start with Letter B

In this section, we are going to share with you 73 most common and everyday conversation idioms that start with the letter B in English, categorised into meanings and their use in sentences.

1. babe in arms

Meaning: an innocent or naive person. (Informal.)
Use in sentence: He’s a babe in arms when it comes to taking girls out.

2. back of beyond

Meaning: the most remote place; somewhere very remote.
Use in sentence: John hardly ever comes to the city. He lives at the back of beyond.

3. back to the drawing-board

Meaning: [it is] time to start over again; [it is] time to plan something over again, especially if it has gone wrong.
Use in sentence: I failed English this term. Well, back to the old drawing board.

4. bag and baggage

Meaning: with one’s luggage; with all one’s possessions. (Informal.)
Use in sentence: Sally showed up at our door bag and baggage one Sunday morning.

5. baptism of fire

Meaning: a first experience of something, usually something difficult or unpleasant.
Use in sentence: My son’s just had his first visit to the dentist. He stood up to the baptism of fire very well.

6. beard the lion in his den

Meaning: to face an adversary on the adversary’s home ground.
Use in sentence: I went to the solicitor’s office to beard the lion in his den.

7. beat about the bush

Meaning: to avoid answering a question or discussing a subject directly; to stall; to waste time.
Use in sentence: Stop beating about the bush and answer my question.

8. beat a (hasty) retreat

Meaning: to retreat or withdraw very quickly.
Use in sentence: The cat beat a hasty retreat to its own garden when it saw the dog.

9. be a thorn in someone’s side

Meaning: to be a constant source of annoyance to someone
Use in sentence: This problem is a thorn in my side. I wish I had a solution to it.

10. bed of roses

Meaning: a situation or way of life that is always happy and comfortable.
Use in sentence: Living with Pat can’t be a bed of roses, but her husband is always smiling.

11. before you can say Jack Robinson

Meaning: almost immediately.
Use in sentence: I’ll catch a plane and be there before you can say Jack Robinson.

12. be getting on for something

Meaning: to be close to something; to be nearly at something, such as a time, date, age, etc. (Informal.)
Use in sentence: He must be getting on for fifty.

13. beggar description

Meaning: to be impossible to describe well enough to give an accurate picture; to be impossible to do justice to in words.
Use in sentence: Her cruelty to her child beggars description.

14. beg off

Meaning: to ask to be released from something; to refuse an invitation.
Use in sentence: I have an important meeting, so I’ll have to beg off.

15. believe it or not

Meaning: to choose to believe something or not.
Use in sentence: Believe it or not, I just got home from work.

16. bend someone’s ear

Meaning: to talk to someone at length, perhaps annoyingly. (Informal.)
Use in sentence: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bend your ear for an hour, but I’m upset.

17. be old hat

Meaning: to be old-fashioned; to be outmoded. (Informal.)
Use in sentence: That’s a silly idea. It’s an old hat.

18. be poles apart

Meaning: to be very different, especially in opinions or attitudes; to be far from coming to an agreement
Use in sentence: They’ll never sign the contract because they are poles apart.

19. best bib and tucker

Meaning: one’s best clothing. (Informal.)
Use in sentence: I always put on my best bib and tucker on Sundays.

20. be thankful for small mercies

Meaning: to be grateful for any small benefits or advantages one has, especially in a generally difficult situation.
Use in sentence: Bob was badly injured in the accident, but at least he’s still alive. Let’s be grateful for small mercies.

21. beyond one’s ken

Meaning: outside the extent of one’s knowledge or understanding.
Use in sentence: Why she married him is beyond our ken.

22. beyond the pale

Meaning: unacceptable; outlawed.
Use in sentence: Your behaviour is simply beyond the pale.

23. beyond the shadow of a doubt

Meaning: completely without doubt.
Use in sentence: We accepted her story as true beyond the shadow of a doubt.

24. beyond any shadow of doubt

Meaning: completely without doubt. (Said of a fact, not a person.)
Use in sentence: Please assure us that you are certain of the facts beyond any shadow of doubt.

25. beyond words

Meaning: more than one can say. (Especially with grateful and thankful.)
Use in sentence: Sally was thankful beyond words at being released.

26. bide one’s time

Meaning: to wait patiently
Use in sentence: I’ve been biding my time for years, just waiting for a chance like this.

27. bite someone’s head off

Meaning: to speak sharply and angrily to someone. (Informal.)
Use in sentence: There was no need to bite Mary’s head off just because she was five minutes late.

28. bite the hand that feeds one

Meaning: to do harm to someone who does good things for you.
Use in sentence: I’m your mother! How can you bite the hand that feeds you?

29. bitter pill to swallow

Meaning: an unpleasant fact that has to be accepted.
Use in sentence: We found his deception a bitter pill to swallow.

30. black sheep (of the family)

Meaning: a member of a family or group who is unsatisfactory or not up to the standard of the rest; the worst member of the family.
Use in sentence: Mary is the black sheep of the family. She’s always in trouble with the police.

English Idioms Starts with Letter B — Letter B Idioms with Meanings

B Letter Idioms with Sentences

31. blank cheque

Meaning: freedom or permission to act as one wishes or thinks necessary.
Use in sentence: He’s been given a blank cheque with regard to reorganizing the workforce.

32. blow hot and cold

Meaning: to be changeable or uncertain (about something). (Informal.)
Use in sentence: He blows hot and cold about this. I wish he’d make up his mind.

33. blow one’s own trumpet

Meaning: to boast; to praise oneself.
Use in sentence: I find it hard to blow my own trumpet, so no one takes any notice of me.

34. blow the lid off (something)

Meaning: to reveal something, especially wrongdoing; to make wrongdoing public. (Informal.)
Use in sentence: The police blew the lid off the smuggling ring.

35. blow up in someone’s face

Meaning: [for something] suddenly to get ruined or destroyed while seeming to go well.
Use in sentence: It is terrible for your hopes of promotion to blow up in your face.

36. blue blood

Meaning: the blood [heredity] of a noble family; aristocratic ancestry.
Use in sentence: The earl refuses to allow anyone who is not of blue blood to marry his son.

37. bone of contention

Meaning: the subject or point of an argument; an unsettled point of disagreement.
Use in sentence: We’ve fought for so long that we’ve forgotten what the bone of contention is.

38. born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth

Meaning: born with many advantages; born to a wealthy family; born to have good fortune.
Use in sentence: Sally was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

39. bow and scrape

Meaning: to be very humble and subservient.
Use in sentence: Please don’t bow and scrape. We are all equal here.

40. Box and Cox

Meaning: two people who keep failing to meet. (Although they both sometimes go to the same place, they are never there at the same time. From characters in a nineteenth-century play, one of whom rented a room by day, the other the same room by night.)
Use in sentence: Since her husband started doing night shifts, they are Box and Cox. She leaves for work in the morning before he gets home.

Idioms Start with B

41. break new ground

Meaning: to begin to do something which no one else has done; to pioneer (in an enterprise).
Use in sentence: They were breaking new ground in consumer electronics.

42. break one’s duck

Meaning: to have one’s first success at something. (From a cricketing expression meaning “to begin scoring.”)
Use in sentence: At last Jim’s broken his duck. He’s got a girl to go out with him.

43. break one’s word

Meaning: not to do what one said one would; not to keep one’s promise.
Use in sentence: If you break your word, she won’t trust you again.

44. break someone’s fall

Meaning: to cushion a falling person; to lessen the impact of a falling person.
Use in sentence: The old lady slipped on the ice, but a snowbank broke her fall.

45. break someone’s heart

Meaning: to cause someone emotional pain.
Use in sentence: Sally broke John’s heart when she refused to marry him.

46. break the ice

Meaning: to start social communication and conversation.
Use in sentence: It’s hard to break the ice at formal events.

47. break the news (to someone)

Meaning: to tell someone some important news, usually bad news.
Use in sentence: I hope that the doctor broke the news gently.

48. breathe down someone’s neck

Meaning: to keep close watch on someone, causing worry and irritation; to watch someone’s activities, especially to try to hurry something along. (Informal. Refers to standing very close behind a person.)
Use in sentence: I can’t work with you breathing down my neck all the time. Go away.

49. breathe one’s last

Meaning: to die; to breathe one’s last breath.
Use in sentence: I’ll keep running every day until I breathe my last.

50. bring home the bacon

Meaning: to earn a salary. (Informal.)
Use in sentence: Go out and get a job so you can bring home the bacon.

51. bring something home to someone

Meaning: to cause someone to realize the truth of something.
Use in sentence: Seeing the starving refugees on television really brings home the tragedy of their situation.

52. bring something to a head

Meaning: to cause something to come to the point when a decision has to be made or action taken.
Use in sentence: It’s a relief that things have been brought to a head. The disputes have been going on for months.

53. bring something to light

Meaning: to make something known; to discover something.
Use in sentence: The scientists brought their findings to light.

54. bull in a china shop

Meaning: a very clumsy person around breakable things; a thoughtless or tactless person. (China is fine crockery.)
Use in sentence: Look at Bill, as awkward as a bull in a china shop.

55. burn one’s boats AND burn one’s bridges (behind one)

Meaning: to go so far in a course of action that one cannot turn back; to do something that makes it impossible to return to one’s former position.
Use in sentence: I don’t want to emigrate now, but I’ve rather burned my boats by giving up my job and selling my house.

56. burn the candle at both ends

Meaning: to exhaust oneself by doing too much, for example, by working very hard during the day and also staying up very late at night.
Use in sentence: You can’t keep on burning the candle at both ends.

57. burn the midnight oil

Meaning: to stay up working, especially studying, late at night. (Refers to working by the light of an oil-lamp.)
Use in sentence: I have to go home and burn the midnight oil tonight.

58. bury the hatchet

Meaning: to stop fighting or arguing; to end old resentments.
Use in sentence: All right, you two. Calm down and bury the hatchet.

59. bush telegraph

Meaning: the informal, usually rapid spreading of news or information by word of mouth.
Use in sentence: The bush telegraph tells me that the manager is leaving.

60. business end of something

Meaning: the part or end of something that actually does the work or carries out the procedure.
Use in sentence: Don’t point the business end of that gun at anyone. It might go off.

Letter B Idioms with Meanings

61. busman’s holiday

Meaning: leisure time spent doing something similar to what one does at work.
Use in sentence: Tutoring pupils in the evening is too much of a busman’s holiday for our English teacher.

62. buy a pig in a poke

Meaning: to purchase or accept something without having seen or examined it. (Poke means “bag.”)
Use in sentence: Buying a car without test driving it is like buying a pig in a poke.

63. buy something for a song

Meaning: to buy something cheaply.
Use in sentence: No one else wanted it, so I bought it for a song.

64. by fits and starts

Meaning: irregularly; unevenly; with much stopping and starting. (Informal.)
Use in sentence: By fits and starts, the old car finally got us to town.

65. by leaps and bounds AND in leaps and bounds

Meaning: rapidly; by large movements forward.
Use in sentence: The profits of my company are increasing in leaps and bounds.
Our garden is growing by leaps and bounds.

66. by no means

Meaning: absolutely not; certainly not.
Use in sentence: I’m by no means angry with you.

67. by return post

Meaning: by a subsequent immediate posting (back to the sender).
Use in sentence: Since this bill is overdue, would you kindly send us your cheque by return post?

68. by the same token

Meaning: in the same way; reciprocally.
Use in sentence: The mayor votes for his friend’s causes. By the same token, the friend votes for the mayor’s causes.

69. by the seat of one’s pants

Meaning: by sheer luck and very little skill. (Informal. Especially with fly.)
Use in sentence: I got through school by the seat of my pants.

70. by the skin of one’s teeth

Meaning: just barely; by an amount equal to the thickness of the (imaginary) skin on one’s teeth. (Informal.)
Use in sentence: I got through that exam by the skin of my teeth.

71. by the sweat of one’s brow