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

skeleton 
(living skeleton)
skid 
(put the skids on something; put
the skids under something)
skin 
(cast its skin; escape with a whole
skin; get into someone’s skin; get
under someone’s skin; jump out of
one’s skin; play out of one’s skin; run
out of one’s skin; save one’s skin)
sky 
(be in the skies; blue skies; blue
sky; drop from the skies; in the skies;
reach for the sky; under the sky)
slate 
(wipe something off the slate)
slave 
(white slave; white-collar slave)
sleep 
(beauty sleep; dead sleep; go to
sleep; lay someone to sleep; never-
ending sleep; put someone to sleep)
slice 
(fish slice)
slide 
(let something slide; on the
downhill slide)
slip 
(let something slip)
slow 
(go slow)
slowly 
(go slowly)
small 
(sing small; talk small)
smoke 
(blow smoke; go down in
smoke; go into smoke; go up in
smoke; in smoke)
snake 
(mad as a cut snake; see snakes;
wake snakes)
snatch 
(make a snatch; take a snatch)
snow 
(sell snow to the eskimos; white
as snow)
so 
(so and so; so so)
society 
(friendly society, the)
sock 
(beat the socks off someone;
knock someone’s socks off; pull one’s
socks up; work one’s socks off )
soil 
(stand on one’s native soil)
soldier 
(chocolate soldier; dead soldier;
toy soldier)
solomon 
(wise as solomon)
son 
(god the son; god’s son)
song 
(sing different songs; sing the
same song)
soon 
(no sooner…than; speak too
soon)
sort 
(all sorts of something; of a sort;
of all sorts; of sorts; of the sort)