glued to the idiot box
- idiom
- Slang
:
pegado a la tele
- Whenever her favorite series airs, she is glued to the idiot box for hours.
Examples
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The children were glued to the idiot box all Saturday morning, barely moving from the sofa.
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Instead of playing outside, he's often glued to the idiot box after school.
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Don't be glued to the idiot box!
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I am glued to the idiot box!
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The children were glued to the idiot box all Saturday morning, barely moving from the sofa.
-
Instead of playing outside, he's often glued to the idiot box after school.
-
Whenever her favorite series airs, she is glued to the idiot box for hours.
Synonyms
1
4.5
Paying all your attention to something because you are very interested
Antonyms
How Much TV
- Slang
- Texting
6
3.9
Surface Forms
Morphology
The component 'glued to' (metaphorically stuck/enthralled) is transparently derivable from knowing 'glue' and the particle 'to', but 'idiot box' is a colloquial/slang name for television whose meaning is not predictable from 'idiot' + 'box' alone. Because one part is transparent while the other requires cultural or lexical knowledge, the overall expression is partially inferable but not fully predictable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Glued to the idiot box comes from two strong images: glued makes you picture someone stuck to the screen, and idiot box is a rude name for the television that suggests it makes people passive. So the phrase means 'watching TV for a long time' and paying very close attention to it.