Cough Up and Flying By The Seat of One's Pants

Today's phrasal verb is Cough Up, which  means
1. to get something out of the body by coughing.

She coughed up phlegm all night.
The dying man coughed up blood.
 
2. To vomit something.  (euphemism)
The dog coughed the rabbit up
.  
3. To produce or present something, such as an amount of money, often unwillingly.  (Slang)

You will cough the money up, won't you?  
I had to cough up $35 for administration fees
He finally coughed up the truth after intense questioning by the police
The schoolyard bully coughed up her book after she told the teacher he had taken it. 

4. To allow an opponent to take the lead in a competition

The Giants got a 3-0 lead in the second inning but then coughed it up in the third.
 
5. Lose possession of a ball, etc. in a contact sport

He was checked so hard he coughed up the puck in front of his own goal.
 
Notes: Separable. Related vocabulary: fork over something

Today's idiom is Flying By The Seat Of One's Pants, which means
1.To do something without a plan, to figure things out as you go,  2. To perform something by feel and intuition rather than by instruments, formal guidelines, experience or education.3. To act in a haphazard manner. 

Most stockbrokers aren't making educated guesses, they're just flying by the seat of their pants.
Without the instructions, we're just going to have to fly by the seat of our pants.
The two boys hopped on the bike together and rode through traffic across town, flying by the seat of their pants. 

This idiom comes from the early days of aviation. Aircraft initially had few navigation aids and flying was accomplished by means of the pilot's judgment. As the plane responded to the pilots actions at the controls, the pilot could feel that response at the largest point of contact between himself and the plane: the seat of his pants. The term emerged in the 1930s and was first widely used in reports of Douglas Corrigan's flight from the USA to Ireland in 1938.

Cave In and Loaded For Bear.

Today's phrasal verb is Cave in, which has two meanings:
1- To collapse

The roof caved in because of the weight of the snow.

2-Stop resisting or refusing

The government has refused to cave in despite the protests and demonstrations.
He caved in to the urge to have a cigarette 

Notes: Intransitive and inseparable in both instances of the definition.  It is common to hear this phrase followed by the word, pressure. E.g., "cave into pressure".

Today's idiom is one of my favorites, Loaded For Bear, which means

To be prepared, mentally and/or physically, for extreme opposition; typically used in reference to an aggressive or potentially violent situation. To be aggressively seeking a confrontation; prepared for any contingency.

When the police responded to the reports of a men in body armor with AK-47s robbing a bank, they came loaded for bear.

I have 3 pages of notes to assist me with this presentation.  I'm loaded for bear. 

I bought a case a beer and order 5 pizzas for tonight's party.  We're loaded for bear.  

P-48 Thunderbolt loaded for bear over France

This idiom can sometimes mean to carry more equipment than necessary. To be overloaded. It can be used in a variety of ways meaning a person is equipped more than necessary for his/her prey.

	A woman "dresses up" with high heels, lipstick, new hair-do, perfume, etc. for club-hopping. "She's loaded for bear." A youth is going hunting for squirrel but takes his father's high-powered rifle and a shotgun. He's loaded for bear.

The phrase originates with American hunters and woodsmen in regions frequented by the brown bear. Brown bears are the largest land-based predator on earth, and when expecting to deal with them the hunters would bring much more powerful rifles than they would if hunting other game. Further, old muskets were loaded by pouring gunpowder down the barrel, followed by the shot. The power of a given charge could be adjusted by adding more or less gunpowder. When hunting large animals like bear, a large and powerful gunpowder charge would be loaded into the musket. Hence loaded for bear is to be hunting with a powerful charge ready.

Hammer Away At and Squeak By

Today's phrasal is Hammer Away At, which is somewhat idiomatic, and means
To work relentlessly


She hammered away at her PC all night and finished the project.
I need to hammer away at the phone until all the invitations for our party are made. 

Notes:  Inseparable

Today's idiom is Squeak By, which means
To make, to do or have just enough to survive

The student was able to squeak by and pay his rent by getting a part-time job.
The team just squeaked by their opponent in the last minute to win.
 

Just Squeaking by

Note: this idiom, which means for something "to be close" in the sense of "just making it", probably derives its meaning from the sound of glass being cleaned until it "squeaks".

Take It Out On and Up To One's Elbows In Alligators and

Today's verbal phrase, Take It Out On, is somewhat longer phrase than usual and is rather idiomatic. It means
To abuse someone because you're angry

Whenever things go wrong, he always shouts and takes it out on me, even if I had nothing to do with the problem.
When he comes home from a bad day at work, he's the kind of person who takes it out on his wife, kids, and even his dog.  

Notes:
Separable [obligatory]

Today's idiom is a particularly colorful and cute one, Up To One's Elbows in Alligators.  It means
To be in a very difficult and unpleasant situation, usually where one is overwhelmed by pressure.

The cook said, "I'm up to my elbows in alligators here!  The assistant chef is sick today and I can't keep up with the orders!

We'll be really up to our elbows in alligators if the boss finds out we made this mistake!

Note: as is apparent, this idiom has a humorous quality that sometimes makes a difficult situation a little better with its touch of humor.  It is very similar to In The Soup, but it lacks the sense of messiness and chaos that the latter has.  It needs to be pointed out that In The Soup has a more psychological aspect to it.  When someone says "I'm in the soup", it can very well mean that they are deeply confused and struggling with life.

Pull Off and Pecking Order

Today's phrasal is Pull Off, which has three meanings
1) to manage to do something difficult or tricky.  

No-one thought that she would be able to do it, but she pulled it off in the end.
I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to pull off paying my bills this month. 

2)To start moving (vehicles)

When the lights turned green, the car pulled off.
Mary called out to Steve, who was in his car, that they needed milk, but he pulled off  just at that moment.

3) To remove a part from something.

Robert pulled off the top of the box and poured some cereal
Oscar is a nasty little boy.  He likes to pull the antennae off of snails.

Notes: the first meaning of Pull Off is separable. It is common to hear it as "pull it off".  The second is intransitive and the third is transitive and separable.


Today's idiom is Pecking Order, which means
The order of importance or rank. Any hierarchical order, as among people in a particular group

The pecking order in the high school locker room clearly ran from the most muscular to the least. 
The pecking order in my company runs from the boss and his secretary to the receptionist.  She always has to follow whatever the secretary says, and I do whatever the receptionist tells me. 

Note: Pecking order refers to how chickens establish dominance. Chickens can be quite vicious. If a chicken has a small wound with a spot of blood, it must be removed from the flock. Otherwise, it is in grave danger of being pecked to death by the others. "The famous study made by biologists W.C. Allee in the 1920s establishes that the pecking order among hens has a definite prestige pattern, hens, like many humans, freely peck at other hens below their rank and submit to pecking from those above them. Hens rarely peck at roosters in the barnyard, where the rooster is the cock of the walk, but it was widely believed in the 17th century that they often pulled feathers from roosters below them in the pecking order."


 

Draw On and In The Soup.

Today's phrasal verb is Draw On.  This is a rather complex phrasal verb that that has three meanings, each of which I will my best to explain.

The first meaning is for time to pass, usually slowly

As the lesson drew on, the students started to get bored.

A secondary meaning to this is for time to unfold or, in some cases, to approach.


As evening draws on.

The second meaning is to extract something from a resource

He draws on his knowledge of Japanese history in this novel. 
He drew on his faith to get him through that difficult time.

Draw on , in this case, is very similar to Draw from, of which I will provide an example.

She draws strength from her friends

The third meaning is
To inhale smoke from a cigarette, cigar, etc

He drew on his cigarette and coughed.


Notes:
 Intransitive- Inseparable.  Draw From, however, is Separable. The word "draw"  is a very complex verb/noun and I highly recommend looking at it further: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/draw+on.  Keep in mind that the word essentially means to pull, with the exception of its usage in the case a creating an image using an pen or pencil.

Today's idiom is In The Soup, which means

In a bad situation. (*Typically: be ~; get [into] ~.)

Experiencing a difficult situation  

As soon as the airlines started to make a profit, they put themselves right back in the soup with a new round of mergers.

Now I'm really in the soup. I broke Mrs. Franklin's window.  

I make a lot of mistakes. It's easy for me to get into the soup.

Usage notes: often used with right back, as in the first example. A variation of In The Soup is In The Stew, although I would say that In The Soup is more common. Also, it should be noted that a slang term used by sailors for the ocean is "soup". 

Face Up To and Hang In There

Today's verbal phrase is Face Up To, which means
To accept an unpleasant truth

Many people find it hard to face up to the fact that they are getting old.
He had to face up to the reality that he married the wrong person. 

Notes: this is an inseparable verb.  Further, this phrase is frequently followed by words "fact" or "reality"

Today's idiom is Hang In There, which means
To persevere despite difficulties; persist:  

She hung in despite pressure to resign.
I told my friend to hang in there after he told me that his company was increasing his hours because they didn't want to hire more help.  

Back Down and A Month of Sundays

Today's phrasal is Back Down, which means
To withdraw or retract your position or proposal in an argument
To withdraw or retreat from a position, opinion, or commitment.

She refused to back down and was fired.
The conservative party backed down from its opposition to the progressive legislation when it became clear that it was popular. 

Note: this verb is Intransitive

Today's idiom is A Month of Sundays, which means
A very long time. A month of Sundays would be 28-31 Sundays running consecutively. It used to be that Sunday was the "day of rest". On this day you wouldn't have your regular job to do. Thus, even if one had nothing at all to do for a whole month, it still wouldn't get it finished.  This phrase is often used negatively to mean that something, effectively, will never be done.


It took a month of Sundays for him to finally finish painting the kitchen
It will be a month of Sundays before I ever go to a party with her again.

Act On and Get Off On The Wrong Foot.

Today's verbal phrase is Act On, which means
To take action because of information received
To carry further or advance;
To regulate one's behavior in accordance with certain information, ideas, or advice
.
The police were acting on a tip from an informer and caught the gang red-handed.
Can you act on this matter soon?
The  American Founding Fathers acted on certain moral principles

This is an inseparable verb, meaning that the object cannot be inserted in between the verb and preposition.  I will clarify this matter of whether the verbal phrase is separable or inseparable and transitive or intransitive in future posts. I've been forgetting to do this.  I will begin correcting this matter for all previous posts that have lacked this important information also. 

Today's idiom is "To Get Off On The Wrong Foot", which means
To make a bad start to a project or relationship.
To start an activity badly or in a way that is likely to fail  

If I get off on the wrong foot with one of my paintings, I know it will never be right.

Holly's new secretary really got off on the wrong foot by being rude to visitors
I don't really know why, but somehow Clare and I got off on the wrong foot. 

Of course, there is an obvious opposite to this expression: you can also "get off on the right foot" at the beginning of a relationship or activity. 

Iron Out and Feather In One's Cap

Today's phrasal verb is iron out, which means
To remove small problems or irregularities. To settle through discussion or compromise. It is similar to the phrasal verb, work out.

The management team ironed out the tax problems before they gave the project the OK.
The lawyers ironed out the final details of the contract during a long meeting.
The baseball pitcher ironed out the problem with his curve ball.
I'm ironing out the wrinkles of what is slowing my computer down. 

This expression, iron out, is often followed by the nouns "wrinkles" or "kinks". 

Today's idiom is a feather in one's cap, which means
An accomplishment; particularly one that is boasted of or bragged. 
An act or deed to one's credit; a distinctive achievement.
A symbol of honor and achievement. 

He thinks it is quite a feather in his cap that he figured it out for himself. 
It's a feather in your cap that you received the highest grade on the test.

The placing of a feather in a hat has been a symbol of achievement that has arisen in several cultures, apparently independently.The Native American tradition of adding a feather to the head-dress of any warrior who performed a brave act is well-known.