LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

"Give a leg up" Google translates into Spanish as "dar una pierna arriba" which is a good word-for-word translation but off the mark. WordReference gives us "levantar, aupar, dar ventaja" which come closer but still off the mark again, considering that the definition is: "To give someone an advantage over others" which brings to mind the Spanish equivalent of "dar trato de favor, trato discriminatorio a favor de alguien."  Collins, always on cloud nine, says it is "a preferential treatment."  — “Quieren saber si la Junta de Castilla y León dio trato de favor a la Caja Rural de Zamora.” El Mundo, 24/08/1994. Esp. — “Wesleyan University… is ending legacy admissions, which give a leg up to the children of alumni.” New York Times, July 19, 2023. US. Why point this out? Just to make students of either language aware of how dictionaries treat phraseology. In my dictionary I am attempting to remedy this problem.     

I believe that with patience and time we can always find exact equivalents in meaning for idiomatic expressions. These phrases may differ in their word components but keep the same meaning. A good example are: " atarse (apretarse) los machos " and " batten down the hatches ."  María Moliner says about "apretarse los machos": "Prepararse para afrontar una situación difícil." The Oxford dictionary explains about "batten down the hatches": "Prepare for a difficulty or crisis." One has a nautical origin and the other a bullfighting one.