Idioms Bingo Card Generator

About Idioms bingo

All 47 Idioms bingo words

Every entry from Back to square one to When pigs fly, grouped by first letter. Edit them in the generator above: drop Easy as pie if it does not suit your group, or add your own.

• B: Back to square one, Ball is in your court, Beat around the bush, Best of both worlds, Bite the bullet, Break a leg, Break the ice
• C: Call it a day, Caught red-handed, Cost an arm and a leg, Couch potato, Cry over spilled milk, Cut corners
• E: Eager beaver, Easy as pie
• F: Face the music, Feeling blue
• G: Get cold feet, Give the cold shoulder, Go the extra mile
• H: Hang in there, Hit the books, Hit the sack, Hold your horses
• I: In hot water
• J: Jump the gun
• K: Keep an eye out
• L: Learn the ropes, Lend a hand, Let off steam
• M: Miss the boat
• O: On thin ice, Once in a blue moon, Out of the blue, Over the moon
• P: Piece of cake, Pull someone's leg
• R: Raining cats and dogs
• S: See eye to eye, Sit on the fence, Spill the beans, Steal the show
• T: Take it easy, Time flies
• U: Under the weather, Up in the air
• W: When pigs fly

Idioms bingo at a glance

How long Idioms bingo lasts

150 shuffled call orders, played on the first 60 cards of this set. With 30 players the first line comes after a median 13 calls (about 2 minutes at one call every 10 seconds); the first blackout needs 43 calls (about 7 minutes).

How to host Idioms bingo

1. 1

   Print the Idioms cards

   Give each player one card; a free set prints up to 30, no two alike. Card 1 above starts with Easy as pie, Bite the bullet, Give the cold shoulder, Eager beaver and Break the ice.

2. 2

   Print the caller sheet

   All 47 entries appear on it in shuffled order, opening with Let off steam, Easy as pie, Couch potato, Hit the sack and Piece of cake; tick each one as you read it out.

3. 3

   Call the meaning instead of the idiom, such as to feel sick, and let players find “Under the weather” before they mark.

4. 4

   Ask a player to act out the literal picture for funny ones like “Raining cats and dogs” or “Couch potato” before the class explains the real meaning.

5. 5

   Have the winner use two idioms from the line in a short dialogue, for example “Break the ice” at a party and “Call it a day” at the end.

6. 6

   Call until someone shouts bingo

   With 30 cards, expect the first line near call 13 (Go the extra mile in this set's order) and a blackout near call 43; check the winner's squares against your ticked list.

Idioms bingo variations

• Idioms variation

  Situation bingo: the caller describes a short scene, such as a nervous groom before the wedding. Players mark an idiom that fits, here “Get cold feet”, and must explain their choice if challenged.

• Blackout round

  Card 1 needs all 24 squares, Easy as pie to In hot water; on average one card fills after 46.1 of the 47 calls (98% of the deck).

• Quick 4x4 round

  A 4x4 card needs 16 of the 47 entries and no free space; one card is full after about 45.2 calls instead of 46.1.

First 15 calls of this Idioms set

Seed "idioms" gives this order, the same one the caller sheet prints. With these calls, card 1 of the first 30 completes the G column (Eager beaver, Piece of cake, Jump the gun, Couch potato and Let off steam) on call 12, and card 20 is the first full card on call 40.

Themes like Idioms bingo

Ranked by category, occasion and audience; none of them repeats an entry from this list, so pasting two into the Edit words box gives a longer game.