Book excerpt: NTC's Thematic Dictionary of American Idioms contains more than 5,500 of the most common and useful idioms arranged conveniently by theme, topic, or meaning. This work combines the best features of a thesaurus and a dictionary. Its features include a definition of each idiom that includes at least two examples of usage, an alphabetical index for locating each idiom, and an easy-to-read format with a minimum of abbreviations and symbols. NTC's Thematic Dictionary of American Idioms is an invaluable tool that allows writers, speakers, and students of English to locate the exact idiomatic expressions they need quickly and easily.