Vocabulary for IELTS Speaking

  

Vocabulary for Speaking

 

How often something happens/Frequency of something

1.       Once in a blue moon: Rarely

2.       24/7: twenty-four hours a day; seven days a week; all the time; constantly

Related to time (when something happened/happens/will happen)

1. A couple of days/week/months/years
2. in the nick of time: Just in time (almost too late)
3. By the skin of one's teeth
4. At the drop of a hat
5. In a heartbeat
6. Out of the blue
7. About time
8. Down the line
9. From time to time
10. 
    

Describe a person

1.       Sense of humour

2.       Go-getter: active, energetic, takes initiative to work on what they want

3.       Down-to-earth

4.       Humble

5.       Honest; Trustworthy
A straight arrow (an honest, trustworthy person)

6.       Politically correct

7.       Easy-going 

8.       Patient

9.       Even-tempered

1.       Hot-tempered/Short-tempered

2.       Cheapskate: Someone who hates to spend money

3.       Black sheep of the family

1.       Oddball

2.       Nerd

3.       Dork

4.       A busybody: someone who wants to know about other people’s private lives

5.       A gossip

Relationship with a person

1.       Get on well with someone

2.       Two peas in a pod

3.       Birds of a feather: People who are similar in character or have similar interests

4.       Joined at the hip: to be exceptionally close to someone

5.       Fight like cat and dog: continually argue (perfect when referring to sibling relationships)

6.       At each other’s throat: arguing angrily all the time (more serious than ‘cat and dog’)

7.       To be on the same page/wavelength: to understand one other well

8.       To get on like house on fire

9.       To speak the same language

Describe a place

1.       Go to the dogs

Describe a place/person/thing

1.       Amazing

2.       Wonderful

3.       Awesome

4.       Great

5.        

Feelings

Beside oneself with: have strong feelings about (almost out of control). E.g.; beside oneself with joy, with grief, with excitement

Have a sinking feeling: Have a feeling that something bad is going to happen

Happy (can be visibly happy too)

1.       Delighted

2.       On cloud nine: extremely happy

3.       Over the moon

4.       On top of the world

5.       Ecstatic

6.       Tickled pink

7.       Make one’s day: something puts in a good mood

Visibly happy/Cheerful

1.       Euphoric

2.       Elated

3.       Jolly mood

4.       In high spirits

5.       Walking on air

Nervous

1.       Anxious

2.       Have/get Butterflies in one’s stomach: feeling nervous

3.       On pins and needles

4.       On the edge

5.       Be a bundle of nerves

Angry

1.       Furious

2.       Lose one’s cool: become angry

3.       Blow a fuse/gasket: suddenly become angry

4.       Fly off the handle: suddenly become angry, often for no reason

5.       Bent out of shape:

6.       Foaming at the mouth: Visibly angry

7.       Up in arms about/over: very angry (visibly) and protesting strongly

8.       See red: become very angry

9.       Make one’s blood boil: Make one angry/Causes one to be angry

Annoyed/Slightly Angry/Bothered/Irritated

1.       Sick and tired: to be annoyed by something

2.       Have had enough: Don’t want more of something

3.       Can’t take it anymore: Can’t deal with something

4.       Had it up to here with something

5.       At one’s wit’s end: Upset and not having the patience to deal with it

Calm

1.       As cool as a cucumber: very calm

2.       Pull oneself together: become calm/calm down

A little upset

1.       Out of sorts: unhappy or slightly unwell

2.       In low spirits

3.       Irritable

4.       Not a happy camper: dissatisfied with something

5.       Don’t feel like oneself

6.       Feel a bit/little off

Sad

1.       Feel depressed

2.       Bummed out

3.       Feel blue

4.       Have the blues

5.       Down in the dumps

6.       Wake up on the wrong side of the bed: wake up in a bad mood

Scared

1.       Scared out of one’s wits

2.       Scared to death

3.       Scared stiff

4.       Shaken up

5.       Jump out of one’s skin

6.       Shaking like a leaf

7.       Make one’s blood run cold

Ashamed

1.       Hang one’s head (in shame)

Bored

1.       Bored to death

2.       Bored to tears

3.       Bored stiff

Worried

1.       Worried stiff

Focused

1.       Locked in

2.       Dialed in

3.       In the zone

Unfocused/Distracted

1.       Spaced out

2.       Zoned out

3.       Out of it

Jealous/Envious

1.       Green with envy

Tired

1.       Look like death warmed over/up: Look tired/pale/ill

Result of something
Something bad happened

1.       To go down in flames: to fail spectacularly

 

Other commonly used words/phrases 

Expensive

1.       Costs an arm and a leg

 

Unwell

1.       Feeling under the weather

2.       Out of sorts: in low spirits or slightly unwell

3.        

Healthy

1.       Fit as a fiddle

2.       As right as rain: feeling completely healthy especially after some illness or accident

 

 

 

Idioms

1.       A far cry from

2.       To be up in arms about something

3.       Go the extra mile: Make an extra effort

4.       A piece of cake: Something very easy to do

5.       Easier said than done: Not as easy as it appears to be

6.       Fish out of water: To be out of place

7.       Give it a whirl: To try something

8.       Hang in there: Be patient

9.       Plain as day: Obvious; clear

10.   Pull yourself together: Calm down and behave normally (usually after going through something disturbing)

11.   Sleep on it: To think about something for a while before making a decision

12.   Take it easy: Relax

13.   Tip of the iceberg: The small easily visible part of a larger problem

14.   To be in the dark: Completely unaware

15.   Tie the knot: Get married

16.   Something fishy: Something suspicious

17.   Take the cake: Be the most remarkable or foolish of its kind

18.   Have bigger fish to fry: Have more important things to do

19.   Have time to kill: Have nothing to do for sometime

20.   Blessing in disguise

21.   A dime a dozen

22.   Add insult to injury

23.   Beat around the busy

24.   Better late than never

25.   Between a rock and a hard place

26.   Bite off more than you can chew

27.   Bite the bullet

28.   Burn the bridges

29.   Water under the bridge

30.   Get a taste of one’s own medicine

31.   Get one’s act together

32.   Second wind

33.   Have your cake and eat it too

34.   Hit the nail on the head

35.   Kill two birds with a stone

36.   To let the cat out of the bag

37.   Steal one’s thunder

38.   The last straw

39.   Through thick and thin

40.   Throw caution to the wind

41.   Go off the rails: behave in an uncontrolled or unacceptable way

42.   Cut corners: Do something in a cheaper way so as to save money (or time or effort)
Skimp; Economize; Pinch pennies

43.   Hang in there: Not give up

44.   Black and blue: Badly bruised/have injuries

45.   A golden opportunity

46.   Forty winks: a short sleep, especially during the day/a nap

47.   Caught red handed

48.   Gray area

49.   A white lie

50.   Frog in one’s throat

51.   Go under the knife: get surgery (could be cosmetic surgery)

52.   On one’s last legs:
(for a person) nearing death
(for a thing) very old and at the end of its usefulness

53.   A brainer: Something that requires no thought/Something that is obvious

54.   Go out of the way to do something

55.   Bend over backwards

56.   A hair’s breadth

57.   Big fish in a small pond

58.   Kettle calling the pot black

59.   Blow smoke: deliberately confuse or mislead someone in order to deceive them

60.   To make matters worse

61.   Money talks

62.   Build bridges

63.   Birds of a feather flock together

64.   A leopard can’t change its spots

65.   Every cloud has a silver lining

66.   The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence

 

Questions

Family vs. Friends

1.       Blood is thicker than water: Family relationships are more important than or should be given more importance than other relationships

2.        

 Copyright © www.Guide2IELTS.com 2022. All rights reserved.