glued to the idiot box
- idiom
- Slang
- 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.
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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
14
4.5
Paying all your attention to something because you are very interested
Antonyms
How Much TV
- Slang
- Texting
7
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.