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sitting on a powder keg

See: SIT ON A VOLCANO.

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Source: A Dictionary of American Idioms

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sit on a volcano

[sit on a volcano] {v.}, {informal} 1. To be in a place where trouble may start or danger may come suddenly. * /Bob was in that part of South America […] A Dictionary of American Idioms

take a powder

[take a powder] {v. phr.}, {slang} To leave hurriedly; run out or away; desert, flee. * /All the gang except one had taken a powder when the police arrived./ A Dictionary of American Idioms

powder room

[powder room] {n.} The ladies' rest room. * /When they got to the restaurant, Mary went to the powder room to wash up./ A Dictionary of American Idioms

sitting pretty

[sitting pretty] {adj.}, {slang} To be in a lucky position. * /The new library is sitting pretty because a wealthy woman gave it $10,000 worth of reference books./ * /Mr. […] A Dictionary of American Idioms

Slang is

"very informal usage in vocabulary and idiom that is characteristically more metaphorical, playful, elliptical, vivid and ephemeral than ordinary language" (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) - learn ~600 slang expressions

An idiom is

an expression "whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements… or from the general grammatical rules of a language"

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