To burn the midnight oil
Meaning: To work late into the night.
Language: English
Literally: To burn the midnight oil
Category: Daily Life
Origin: From oil lamps burning past midnight; the phrase was coined by the English poet Francis Quarles in 1635.
More idioms — Daily Life
- To throw a spanner in the works — To sabotage or disrupt a plan.
- A skeleton in the closet — A shameful secret kept hidden.
- To read the riot act — To reprimand someone sternly.
- To pull out all the stops — To make every possible effort.
- To jump on the bandwagon — To join something only once it becomes popular.
- Sein blaues Wunder erleben — To get an unpleasant surprise.
More English idioms
- Once in a blue moon — Very rarely.
- To break the ice — To ease the initial tension in a social situation.
- To give a wide berth — To keep well away from someone or something.
- To have egg on your face — To look foolish or embarrassed.
- To bury your head in the sand — To refuse to face an obvious danger.
- To bite off more than you can chew — To take on more than you can handle.
From our proverbs
- Tis easy to find a staff to beat a dog. — Finding excuses to punish someone you already dislike requires no effort or genuine justi…
- Better to be beaten than be in bad company. — Physical hardship endures briefly; corrupting influences from vice seep into character pe…
- As you make your bed so you must lie on it. — Your choices about how you arrange your life will directly determine the comfort or disco…