chew the fat: have a casual conversation
→ After the meeting, Tom and Susan stayed a few minutes to chew the fat.
in a nutshell: a summary
→ The park ranger gave a very long report about the dangers of forest fires. In a nutshell: Be careful with your campfires!
a piece of cake: easy!
→ Lina was so relieved about her driving test. She had expected it to be tricky and hard, but it was a piece of cake!
take it with a grain of salt: don’t believe it completely
→ Because the study was done by a company that wants to sell the product, people should take the results with a grain of salt.
butter someone up: say nice things to someone to win his or her favor
→ Ellen was hoping for a promotion at work, so she tried to butter up the boss with compliments about how nice she looked. (But we bet the boss took the compliment with a grain of salt!)
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