Idioms That Start With B help learners understand popular English expressions that begin with the letter B and are commonly used in daily conversations and writing activities. In this blog post, you will read useful B letter idioms with meanings and easy examples that help beginners understand how these expressions are used in different situations. Learning idioms is helpful for speaking English in a more natural way and understanding phrases that have hidden meanings. These idioms help learners recognize common expressions, build creative vocabulary knowledge, and use many real-life English phrases more confidently in everyday communication.
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.
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
- Meaning: by one’s efforts; by one’s hard work.
- Use in sentence: Tom grew these vegetables by the sweat of his brow.
72. by virtue of something
- Meaning: because of something; owing to something.
- Use in sentence: She’s permitted to vote by virtue of her age.
73. by word of mouth
- Meaning: by speaking rather than writing.
- Use in sentence: I learned about it by word of mouth.
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