: Resource for idioms I'm not a native English speaker and I have a hard time finding good words sometimes. Sometimes I feel like there should be an idiom for the thing I want to say, but

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I see your problem. This is something that I run into all the time.
When you can't figure out the right word.
just use a free online dictionary and go through the synonym list for the word you decided doesn't sound right.

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Idiom is defined as: an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements, as in "kick the bucket";;
OR -- a construction or expression of one language whose parts correspond to elements in another language but whose total structure or meaning is not matched in the same way in the second language.

Not sure if given your example ("door opening abruptly"), that it falls into the definition of idiom. (Note: might you be looking for some kind of "similar phrase" resource? that would be different.) Doing a quick search for idiom resources provides quite a few results. Here are a couple of links you can check out:
www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/ http://www.idiomreference.com/

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