National Pie Day: Expressions about Pie in the English Language

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Not to be confused with National Pi Day (which falls on March 14th), January 23rd marks National Pie Day, which has been an annual celebration of pies since the 1970s. The celebration was started in Boulder, Colorado, by nuclear engineer, brewer, and teacher Charlie Papazian who decided his birthday would be called National Pie Day.

A pie is a dish baked in a pastry-lined pan often with a pastry top. Common pie fillings include meat and vegetables in a savoury sauce or fruit. You may also have heard Americans refer to pizza as pie ñ this is because pizza is the Italian word for pie.

Click here to see the full Spellzone dictionary definition of the word and here for the Spellzone vocabulary lists related to this word.

Here are ten English expressions that are about pie – can you think of any others?

  1. a piece/slice of the pie – a share of the total amount (usually in reference to shares in money or business)
  2. easy as pie – very easy
  3. nice/sweet as pie – very pleasant/polite/sweet
  4. pie in the sky – something that is fun to dream about but which is very unlikely to happen
  5. pie-eyed – very drunk
  6. shut your pie hole! – be quiet!
  7. sweetie pie – a term of endearment
  8. to eat humble pie – to apologise and accept humiliation
  9. to have a finger the pie – to be involved in an event or matter (usually in an interfering way)
  10. to have fingers in many pies – to be involved in many different things (sometimes in order to keep your options open)

If you enjoyed this post, why not check out our other articles about idioms?

 


22 Jan 2019
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