List:
- ado, as in “without further ado” or “much ado about nothing“, although the homologous form “to-do” remains attested (“make a to-do”, “a big to-do”, etc.)
- amok, as in “run amok“
- bandy, as in “bandy about” or “bandy-legged“
- bated, as in “wait with bated breath“, although the derived term “abate” remains in nonidiom-specific use
- beck, as in “at one’s beck and call“, although the verb form “beckon” is still occasionally seen in nonidiom-specific use
- bygones, as in “let bygones be bygones“
- caboodle, as in “kit and caboodle” (a “born fossil” in that “kit and caboodle” evolved from “kit and boodle”, which itself was a fixed phrase borrowed as a unit from Dutch kitte en boedel)
- coign, as in “coign of vantage“
- deserts, as in “just deserts“, although singular “desert” in the sense of “state of deserving” occurs in nonidiom-specific contexts including law and philosophy
- dint, as in “by dint of“
- druthers, as in “if I had my druthers…” (note that “druthers” is a “born fossil”, having been formed by elision from ” [‘I’d/(I would) rathers’ and never occurring outside the listed phrase to begin with)
- dudgeon, as in “in high dudgeon“
- eke, as in “eke out“
- fettle, as in “in fine fettle“[3]
- fro, as in “to and fro“
- helter skelter, as in “scattered helter skelter about the office”, Middle English skelten to hasten[4]
- hither, as in “come hither”, “hither and thither”, and “hither and yon”
- immemorial, as in “time immemorial“
- jetsam, as in “flotsam and jetsam“, except in legal contexts (especially admiralty, property, and international law)
- kith, as in “kith and kin“[5]
- loggerheads as in “at loggerheads“[6] or loggerhead turtle
- mettle, as in “test one’s mettle“
- neap, as in “neap tide“
- offing, as in “in the offing“[7]
- petard, as in “hoist[ed] by [one’s] own petard“
- riddance, as in “good riddance“
- shebang, as in “the whole shebang“, but the word can be used as a common noun in programmers’ jargon, especially on Unix-like systems
- shrive, preserved only in inflected forms occurring only as part of fixed phrases: ‘shrift’ in “short shrift“[8] and ‘shrove’ in “Shrove Tuesday“
- spick, as in “spick and span“
- tarnation, as in “what in tarnation…?” (a “born fossil” in that it evolved only in the context of fixed phrases formed by mincing of previously fixed phrases that include the term “damnation”)
- turpitude, as in “moral turpitude“
- wedlock, as in “out of wedlock”
- wreak, as in “wreak havoc“
- vim, as in “vim and vigor“
- yore, as in “of yore“, usually “days of yore”
