A dictionary of Confusable Phrases: More Than 10,000 Idioms and Collocations

clerk 
(ship’s clerk; shipping clerk)
clock 
(beat the clock; by the clock;
clean someone’s clock; flog the clock;
floral clock; kill the clock; like a
clock; like one o’clock; on the clock;
one’s biological clock is ticking; run
like a clock; run out the clock; sleep
round the clock; sleep through the
clock; stop one’s clock; stop some-
one’s clock; stop the clock; watch the
clock)
closet 
(come out of the closet)
cloth 
(cotton cloth; cottony cloth; cut
from the same cloth; cut out of
whole cloth; man of the cloth)
clothes 
(long clothes)
clothing 
(seasonable clothing; seasonal
clothing)
cloud 
(be in the clouds; be on cloud
seven; drop from the clouds; every
cloud has a silver lining; on cloud
nine; under a cloud)
clown 
(make a clown of oneself )
club 
(be in the club; join the club)
coachhorse 
(devil’s coachhorse)
coal 
(carry coals; carry coals to newcas-
tle; rake over old coals; rake someone
over the coals)
coat 
(blue coats; fur coat; fur-lined
coat)
cock 
(be the cock in the henhouse)
cocker 
(according to cocker)
coffee (wake up and smell the coffee)
coffin 
(nail in the coffin)
– 379 –
Key Word Index

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coin 
(hard coin)
cold 
(be out in the cold; catch someone
cold; come in from the cold; have
someone cold; hot and cold; in cold
storage; leave someone cold; leave
someone out in the cold; out cold;
out in the cold; stone cold; suffer
from a cold; suffer from the cold)
collection 
(rent collection; rental col-
lection)