English Help Online's Blog

I hope everyone has been having a good week. It’s Friday now in Tokyo, so the weekend is almost here! Anyway, the idiom for today is “to do the trick”. It is used when we do an action that is enough to accomplish something. For example:

My computer wasn’t working properly. My friend suggested I reboot it, and that did the trick. It worked fine after that.

The soup I made isn’t spicy enough. I’ll put in a little bit of chili pepper, and that should do the trick.

This screwdriver is too small to do the trick. I need to get a bigger one.

My sister wanted to get Billy’s attention at school. I told her to wear a shorter skirt, and that really did the trick. Billy asked her out on a date.

This expression is often used when we’re trying to fix something as in the first two examples. However, it can also be used when trying to accomplish a personal goal as in the last example.