I recently acquired a book called Scholastic Dictionary of Idioms. I purchased it mostly for myself, assuming that it would be a good education for me, since I didn’t grow up very much here in the U.S. Surprisingly, I know a lot more of the idioms than I thought I would, though I don’t know them well enough to remember to use them. Then again, the book was printed in 1996, so it’s probably out of date since language changes so rapidly.
In any case, wordle 50 – “six of one, and half a dozen of the other” – and its comments made me think it would be fun to post some of the idioms from my book on the blog. Your job is to see if you understand what it means, and, even better, if you know how it started! After a while I’ll post the answer from the book. So, here’s today’s idiom:
“On Tenterhooks”
Steven waited on tenterhooks to see if he would win the award.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
on tenterhooks; anticipation
Never heard of it.
No clue
Here is what the book says about “On Tenterhooks”:
When the bear sprang from the thicket, George ran so fast I couldn’t tell if he was on steroids or on tenterhooks.