Assessment Tests: Computer-Based English Assessment

This book offers a fresh look at the idiomatic phrases and sayings that make English the rich language that it is. The third edition contains entries for over 6,000 idioms, including 700 entirely new entries, based on Oxford's language monitoring and the ongoing third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

What does "A rising tide lifts all the boats" mean? Where did the saying, "Garbage in, garbage out" come from? And when did "A watched pot never boils" first occur? The answers to these questions are among the many that can be found in the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, the only dictionary to record and describe the modern proverb. This authoritative reference lists over 2,000 traditional sayings, weeding out ones that have fallen into disuse and including over 100 new proverbs--old sayings that have reappeared in recent times, and newly created ones--known in the twentieth century. Entries include illustrative quotations that show the context of a proverb's use, its history and origins (including Greek, Latin, and French antecedents), and an extensive cross-referencing system for easy access.