We're Missing Some Animals Trivia Quiz

Answer:

Idioms can come from a wide variety of sources such as the military, religion/religious texts such as the Bible, pop culture, and occupations. Idioms are used to express an idea using language that is usually metaphoric, and their origin may not be related to the meaning of the origin.

The idiom "egg on your face" is believed to have come from vaudeville acts where the person would literally have an egg on his/her face.
The idiom "turn a blind eye" probably came from the military, when Horatio Nelson was ordered to withdraw but pretended not to see the flagship, which he accomplished by holding the spyglass up to his bad eye.
"Shooting fish in a barrel" comes from fishermen who would load barrels with fish, meaning if you were to shoot in the barrel, you'd shoot a fish. This is why that phrase is used to refer to a very easy task.

Proverbs are usually statements rather than phrases like idioms, but they often share their same purpose. For example, "a leopard can't change its spots" comes from the Bible (specifically, Jeremiah 13:23), and it means people can't change their basic ways. Although a lot of proverbs come from the Bible (and there's even a book called Proverbs), they can come from other sources as well, just like idioms.

Idioms and proverbs that come from the Bible include:
"Belly of the whale" (book of Jonah) - this originally referred to Jonah being saved from drowning by a whale and Jonah realizing the error of trying to run from God. Now, it means a situation with little or no hope.
"Out of the mouth of babes" (book of Psalms) - this refers to a child speaking a profound statement.
"Wolf in sheep's clothing" (book of Matthew) - This means a dangerous person or situation being disguised as a friendly person or situation with the intent being to deceive someone.
"Fly in the ointment" (book of Ecclesiastes) - this means a small defect is causing a major problem, just like a fly would cause the entire batch of ointment to go bad.
"Apple of my eye" comes from many books of the Bible, the first of which is Deuteronomy. It refers to someone or something that precious to you. In the original content, Israel was the apple of God's eye, since God identified Israel as His chosen people.

The origin and meaning of other idioms are:
"Raining cats and dogs" refers to very heavy rain. It was coined in Henry Vaughan's book "Olor Iscanus", although a similar expression was used earlier in mythology. In this case, witches were believed to be the cause of great storms and they used animals to cause this.
"Beat around the bush" means discussing a matter while avoiding the main point. It is a medieval hunting phrase. Sometimes, the hunter would beat a bush to get a bird to fly, which would make it easier for the hunter to shoot the bird.
"Don't bite the hand that feeds you" comes from either Sappho or Aesop. It refers to being ungrateful to someone who helped you.
"When pigs fly" has its origin in a 1600s dictionary by John Withals. This refers to the impossibility (or supposed impossibility) of completing a task. This particular saying was originally used literally by Withals.
"Penny for your thoughts" comes from Thomas More's book "Four Last Things" and refers to someone being curious about what you are thinking. The penny is what they would pay for hear your thoughts. When this was first being said, a penny was worth a lot more money than it is now.
"A rolling stone gathers no moss" is attributed to the sayings of Publilius Syrus. It originally referred to someone who avoided responsibility but now it refers to someone with a sense of freedom. (It could be argued that you get the freedom by avoiding responsibilities.) Since a stone is rolling and not staying in one place, it can't gather anything like moss.
The belfry in "bats in your belfry" refers to a church bell tower. Bats like to hang there which people would view as weird or eccentric. Thus, bats in your belfry meaning a person being weird or eccentric.
"Blind as a bat" refers to the misconception that a bat is blind when in fact, they can see, but gather more information through the ears via echolocation than with their eyes. When someone is blind as a bat, it means they can't figuratively see something.
"Take it on the chin" has its origin in boxing. When two people box, one possible move is to punch the chin. The result would hurt, with the severity of it depending on how the chin was hit. The person who got punched would be expected to take it in stride, since it was part of the sport. Likewise, the idiom means to accept misfortune without complaining about it.
"A deer in the headlights" means someone who is caught in a situation and not sure how to react, usually because of fear. This expression comes from what a deer would sometimes do if it saw a car coming at night--hence the headlights being on.
"A can of worms" is an idiom that originated with Greek mythology, specifically, the legend of Pandora's box. Zeus gave Pandora a box telling her never to open it, but Pandora's curiosity got the best of her, and she opened it, releasing negative things (like sickness) into the world and leaving hope behind. The idiom means to solve a problem by means of something that ends up being a bigger problem that the original one, just as Pandora caused a bigger problem.