Although it is often assumed that idioms are too informal for use in academic English, two studies have identified idioms which occur fairly frequently in spoken and written academic English.

This page describes idioms in academic English, giving information on what an idiom is, why academic idioms should be studied, as well as a list of academic idioms for spoken and written English from a recent study of idioms (Miller, 2019), giving first background to the creation of the list and finally the list itself.

There are also some exercises to help you practise using academic idioms.

For a different look at the some of the idioms, check out the academic idioms infographics ».

What is an idiom?

An idiom is a fixed, well-established, multi-word expression, the meaning of which is not deducible from the individual words. The following are some examples of idioms in everyday (not academic) English.

• Raining cats and dogs - raining very hard
• Break a leg - said before a performance, meaning 'good luck'
• Behind one's back - secretly

The following are some examples of idioms for academic English use (a complete list is given below).

• On the other hand - from another point of view (showing contrast)
• Bear in mind - think of something, especially as a warning
• The bottom line - the main or essential point
• Take on board - accept or deal with (a problem or idea)

Why study academic idioms?

Idioms are common in everyday spoken and written English. Although it is often assumed that idioms are too informal for use in academic English, two studies (Simpson and Mendis, 2003, and Miller, 2019) have identified idioms which are used in academic contexts, more commonly in spoken academic contexts though also in academic writing. In Miller's study, idioms in spoken academic texts, including repetitions, occurred with a frequency of 835 per million words, or close to 0.1%. While this figure is not as high as, say, words in the Academic Word List (10%) or the Academic Collocation List (1.4%), productive knowledge of idioms will assist students in becoming part of the academic discourse community, while receptive knowledge will aid them in understanding spoken or written texts.

Miller reports that idioms may sometimes be signposted by lecturers (e.g. via the phrase as it were) or writers (e.g. via the phrase as they say or by use of quotation marks). However, these methods do not always signal idiom use, do not help students to understand the meaning of idioms, and in fact add a layer of complexity to academic English study (in terms of what as it were and as they say mean and why quotation marks are used in that way).

Academic Idioms List: background to the list

The list of academic idioms (below) comes from the study by Julia Miller (2019), which used two academic English corpuses: the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus for spoken texts (lectures and seminars), and the Oxford Corpus of Academic English (OCAE) for written texts. Only idioms with a frequency of more than 1.2 per million words (pmw) in the BASE were included.

The range of idiom use is shown by the number of texts in which each idiom occurs, as well as the number of faculties (i.e. disciplinary groups) it occurs in. Miller's study used four such faculties, namely Social Sciences (which had the highest idiom use with 234 pmw), Arts and Humanities (which had 191 idioms pmw), Life and Medical Sciences (183 pmw), and Physical Sciences (which had the least frequent use, 76 pmw).

Most idioms in the list occur in more than one faculty, meaning they are suitable for study by all students of academic English. The most frequent idiom used in only one faculty, gold standard (24th most frequent idiom in spoken academic English and 10th most frequent in written academic English), was used only in the Life Sciences (medical articles).

References

Exercises

Academic Idioms List: Written

The list below gives written academic idioms from the OCAE (Oxford Corpus of Academic English) corpus, listed in order of frequency. There are 38 idioms in total. There is a separate version of 170 idioms for spoken academic English (use the button below to switch lists). Definitions are included for all idioms. [Note: Sp freq pmw means spoken frequency per million words while Wr freq pmw refers to written frequency per million words.]

No.	Idiom	Definition	Sp freq pmw (BASE)	Wr freq pmw (OCAE)	No. texts	No. faculties
1	on the other hand	adv (contrastive) from another point of view. [Syn: then again, but then]	64.11	88.12	30	4
2	in (the) light of	adv in view of, because of, considering.	5.39	34.99	8	3
3	on the one hand	adv from one point of view. [Syn: on one hand]	37.74	31.87	30	4
4	on the other [hand]	adv (contrastive) from another point of view. [Syn: then again, but then]	10.19	20.34	12	3
5	in the hands of	adv controlled or owned by someone.	6.59	12.54	10	3
6	bear in mind	verb (1) keep in mind. [Syn: mind] (2) think of something, especially as a warning.	46.73	10.17	42	4
7	in its own right	adv because of its own special qualities.	5.99	9.27	10	4
8	along the lines of	adv in a similar way or of a similar type.	6.59	9.24	9	3
9	in the long run	adv after a very lengthy period of time. [Syn: in the end]	5.39	7.84	9	4
10	gold standard	noun (1) a monetary standard under which the basic unit of currency is defined by a stated quantity of gold. (2) a paragon of excellence.	5.39	6.66	6	1
11	a step further/back	noun action that will be helpful/harmful to a situation.	7.19	6.21	12	4
12	driving force	noun someone or something that makes something happen.	5.39	6.21	8	4
13	the balance of power	noun an equilibrium of power between nations.	10.78	6.20	8	2
14	come into play	verb begin to be used or begin to have an effect.	5.39	4.26	8	3
15	in the short run	adv over a relatively brief period of time (often used in contrast with the long run) .	3.00	4.19	2	2
16	last resort	noun (1) French for `worst going'. [Syn: pis aller] (2) the only choice that remains after all others hand been tried.	3.00	4.05	5	2
17	rule of thumb	noun a rule or principle that provides guidance to appropriate behavior. [Syn: guidepost, guideline]	1.20	2.98	2	2
18	golden age	noun (1) a time period when some activity or skill was at its peak. (2) any period (sometimes imaginary) of great peace and prosperity and happiness. (3) (classical mythology) the first and best age of the world, a time of ideal happiness, prosperity, and innocence; by extension, any flourishing and outstanding period. [Syn: Golden Age]	3.00	2.96	3	2
19	bad news	noun someone or something that is undesirable or dangerous.	5.39	2.75	8	4
20	go hand in hand with	verb be closely related to or happening at the same tim.	3.59	2.68	5	3
21	on one hand	adv from one point of view. [Syn: on the one hand]	1.80	2.58	3	2
22	on the face of it	adv from appearances alone. [Syn: apparently, seemingly, ostensibly]	5.39	2.57	8	4
23	the bottom line	noun the main or essential point.	8.39	2.50	8	4
24	in the early days	noun an early period of development. [Syn: youth]	3.59	2.33	5	4
25	beg the question	verb (1) to cause someone to ask a particular question. (2) to talk about something as if it were true, even though it may not be.	2.40	2.18	2	2
26	from scratch	adv from the beginning.	3.59	1.86	6	3
27	go without saying	verb to be so obvious that it does not need explanation.	4.79	1.85	6	2
28	trial and error	noun experimenting until a solution is found.	4.79	1.85	5	3
29	bridge the gap	verb to connect two things or make the difference between them smaller.	3.59	1.85	6	3
30	get to grips with	verb deal with (a problem or a subject). [Syn: come to grips]	3.59	1.78	4	3
31	a fair share	noun a reasonable amount.	1.20	1.55	2	1
32	the high point	noun the best or most enjoyable part of a given experience.	2.40	1.52	4	2
33	the whole story	noun all the facts.	2.40	1.41	3	3
34	at the end of the day	adv taking everything into consideration.	14.98	1.36	13	4
35	state of the art	noun the highest degree of development of an art or technique at a particular time.	4.19	1.36	4	2
36	behind the scenes	adv happening without people knowing it, especially when something else is happening publicly.	2.40	1.36	3	2
37	the big picture	noun the whole story or idea.	3.59	1.30	6	3
38	across the board	adv including or applying to all.	5.99	1.21	7	3