Understanding work-related expressions can greatly enhance your communication skills in professional settings. This blog post covers 20 essential idioms and phrasal verbs related to work, providing you with their meanings and example sentences to help you use them confidently.
1. Burn the midnight oil
Meaning: Work late
Example: She often burns the midnight oil to meet deadlines.
2. Climb the corporate ladder
Meaning: Advance in career
Example: He’s determined to climb the corporate ladder quickly.
3. Hit the ground running
Meaning: Start quickly and successfully
Example: New employees are expected to hit the ground running.
4. Pull your weight
Meaning: Do your fair share
Example: Everyone in the team needs to pull their weight.
5. Learn the ropes
Meaning: Understand how things work
Example: It took a while to learn the ropes at the new job.
6. Bring to the table
Meaning: Offer something useful
Example: What skills can you bring to the table?
7. On the back burner
Meaning: Delayed for later
Example: The project is on the back burner for now.
8. Cut corners
Meaning: Do something cheaply or quickly
Example: Don’t cut corners on this project; it’s too important.
9. Keep your nose to the grindstone
Meaning: Work hard and continuously
Example: If you keep your nose to the grindstone, you’ll succeed.
10. A foot in the door
Meaning: Initial opportunity
Example: This internship will give you a foot in the door.
11. Think outside the box
Meaning: Be creative
Example: We need to think outside the box to solve this problem.
12. Touch base
Meaning: Briefly update someone
Example: Let’s touch base after the meeting.
13. Call it a day
Meaning: Stop working
Example: It’s late; let’s call it a day.
14. Bite off more than you can chew
Meaning: Take on too much
Example: Don’t bite off more than you can chew with this project.
15. Down to the wire
Meaning: At the last moment
Example: The report was finished just down to the wire.
16. Throw in the towel
Meaning: Give up
Example: He decided to throw in the towel after years of struggling.
17. Play it by ear
Meaning: Improvise
Example: Let’s play it by ear and see how it goes.
18. In the pipeline
Meaning: In process
Example: We have several new projects in the pipeline.
19. Across the board
Meaning: Affecting everyone
Example: The new policy will be implemented across the board.
20. Cut to the chase
Meaning: Get to the point
Example: Let’s cut to the chase and discuss the main issue.
