English Idioms - letter C

Idiom	Definition	Usage
calculated risk	an action that may fail but has a good chance to succeed	Investing in that stock is a calculated risk.
call a spade a spade	speak bluntly	I think that you should call a spade a spade.
call it quits	finish	She wants to call it quits and go home.
call of nature	need to go to the toilet	He is answering the call of nature.
call off	cancel	They had to call off the game because of rain.
call on	visit	She was planning to call on her friend when she got into town.
call on	request participation of	The teacher likes to call on students sitting in the back.
call the shots	make the decisions	The new boss likes to call the shots.
captain of industry	top corporation officer	The company president is a captain of industry.
carry over	delay	The store decided to carry over the sale until next week.
carry over	transfer	They had to carry over the budget deficit to next year.
carry the day	be successful	The new product should carry the day.
carry through	continue	She thought It would be best to carry through with her plans.
cash or credit	cash or credit card	Will that be cash or credit?
catch some rays	get some sunshine	I'm going to lie on the beach and catch some rays.
catch some Z's	sleep	I decided to catch some Z's before going back to the college.
catch you later	see you later	Yeah, catch you later.
check it out	look	Hey, check it out.
check out	look at	We can check out the babes at the park.
chow down	eat a lot	I need to find a place to chow down.
close out	discontinued merchandise	The store had a close out sale and sold everything.
close the books	end a bookkeeping period	The company will close the books at the end of the fiscal year.
cold call	call persons she has never seen or met	She had to cold call for the entire day.
come on strong	overwhelm with excessively strong language or personality	Salespeople usually come on strong when trying to sell their product.
company man	person who always works hard	The manager is a company man.
company town	town dominated by one company	This is really a company town.
cool down	calm down	Things should cool down in a day or two.
crack open	open	Let's crack open a bottle for his birthday.
cut out	leave	It is late. I have to cut out.
cut back on	reduce	The company needs to cut back on expenses.
cut corners	reduce expenses	The department tried to cut corners to save money.
cut off	cut off	The telephone conversation was cut off because of the storm.