Colour idioms are a great way to brighten up your speech or writing! In this video, we look at idioms that have the colours blue, black, white, silver, and grey.
BLUE
Blue In The Face
To do something until you are blue in the face.
If you don’t have enough oxygen, your face will turn blue, so that’s where this idiom comes from. When you talk with or argue with someone for a long time, without any chance of changing their mind, your face just might start to turn blue.
You can argue with me until you’re blue in the face, but I’m never getting on that roller coaster.
Once In A Blue Moon
Ok, maybe I would go on a roller coaster – once in a blue moon.
Once in a blue moon means, very rarely, hardly ever. What else would happen, once in a blue moon?
Ah, I know – My kids clean up their bedroom, once in a blue moon!
Out Of The Blue
On that subject, a few weeks ago, one of my kids suddenly started cleaning their bedroom, without me telling them to. It just came out of the blue.
Out of the blue – when something happens unexpectedly. A total surprise.
I got a phone call, out of the blue, from my childhood best friend. I haven’t seen her in 20 years.
Blue Collar
This relates to the type of work a person does. If a person does manual labour (works with their hands), either in a skilled or unskilled job, they are said to be a blue-collar worker. Tradespeople like plumbers, painters, factory workers and builders are all blue-collar workers.
The opposite of this is a white-collar worker. These are the people who work in offices, in administration or management. They often wear a suit and tie to work.
BLACK
Our next idiom has two colours.
Black and Blue
If you are black and blue, you have a lot of bruises – a bruise is the dark mark on your skin, when you have an accident or something hits you.
The man was beaten until he was black and blue.
Black Sheep
A Black Sheep is someone who doesn’t do what is expected of them, they bring shame on their family. They don’t fit in.
With his tattoos and piercings, John has always been the black sheep of the family.
Black and White
A subject or situation where it is easy to understand what is right and wrong, is said to be black and white. We are not talking about literal colours – it is a metaphor for extreme opposite ideas. There might be a black and white solution to a problem such as – if you commit a certain crime, you go to jail. That’s it. End of story.
For some people nuclear disarmament is a black and white issue.
GREY
So with black and white, it’s either one or the other. But what’s the murky colour in between? Grey! (Note how I have spelled it – with an e – this is British spelling. North Americans spell it ‘gray’).
Grey Area
A grey area is a situation that is not clear or where the rules are not known. It’s not just ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. You can have a legal grey area or a moral grey area.
An example of a grey area would be a legal issue where different judges might rule differently. In some cases, the law is absolutely clear (black and white) and almost any judge would rule the same way. In other cases, the law is more difficult to understand, and there might be many possible verdicts depending on the judge’s opinion.
WHITE
White Elephant
A White Elephant is something that is expensive or cost a lot of money to run, but doesn’t serve any useful purpose, or it is no longer needed.
That extra railway line has been a white elephant almost from the start.
White Lie
Your new haircut looks great! (It doesn’t really.) That was a little White Lie. I didn’t want you to feel bad. People tell white lies all the time to make other people feel better about themselves. It’s one of those things that, even if a person hates lies, they will generally accept white lies as something that’s ok.
“No, your cooking isn’t terrible at all. It just needs a little salt.” (white lie!)
SILVER
Silver Lining
There is an expression “every cloud has a silver lining” – it means that even bad situations often have some good come from them. The cloud is the bad situation, the silver lining is the good thing that happens as a result. People often abbreviate to just ‘silver lining’.
I broke my leg and can’t get out of bed, but the silver lining is that I can read books and watch TV all day.
MORE COLOUR IDIOMS
True Colours
But what happens when you Show Your True Colours? Do you get angry? Mean? Are you very sensitive? To show your true colours is to be exactly who you are. This might depend on your culture. Some cultures are very direct, and people say exactly what they feel, they don’t need to hide themselves.
But with some cultures, people are expected to be polite and never say what they are really thinking and feeling. If you show people what you are really like inside, you are showing people your true colours.
Did you hear how Austin spoke to his wife last night? I think he was showing his true colours.
Flying Colours
And finally, if you take a test, and you do very well on it, then you can say you passed with Flying Colours. I hope that you pass all your English exams with flying colours!
As always, questions and comments can be left under the video on YouTube.
Until next time!
