The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms

The cat will never get your tongue once you have The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. This book defines nearly 10,000 idioms — expressions consisting of two or more words whose combined meaning is different from the literal meaning of the individual words. Each entry has both a definition and a sentence showing the idiom used in context. Most entries offer an explanation of the idiom's origin and indicate when the expression first appeared in English.