強引

gouin
pushy, aggressive, overbearing

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I guess these characters never really made sense together in my mind: 強, which is the character used for the adjective, 強い (tuyoi, strong, powerful), and 引 , which is the character used for the verb, 引く (hiku, to pull). But I guess I can see how a 'powerful pulling' could relate to being 'overbearing'...

脅かす

obiyakasu
to threaten

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A simple enough verb. I just need to remember it. =)

突破

toppa
break through, penetrate, break past

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I must have a mental block about this term, because I have looked it up numerous times over the course of my translation history. Now I am committed to learning it once and for all. It is derived of characters that are used for two somewhat vicious verbs:

突く (tuku, to pierce, stab, thrust)

and:

破れる (yabureru, to rend, rip, tear)

Combined, it is easy to see how we get the violent act of penetration. But it can also be used to describe how earnings shoot past expectations, as well. So there's not always a violent connotation.
Anyway, here's to hoping it's now committed to memory.

返り討ちに遭う

kaeriuti ni au
to challenge someone, only to have it end in certain defeat

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This seems like a difficult concept to transliterate, briefly, into English. Briefly is the key notion for me, because lately I am working under tight restrictions in line lengths and cannot be verbose. I forget the full original Japanese sentence, but I could not have ended the English with:

you're going to challenge them only to have it end in your certain defeat.

That would have been too long. I think I maintained the sense of the original when I pared it down to:

you'll end in certain defeat.

...within the context of the sentence and the surrounding story, which was indicating that the second person was going to challenge something formidable.

良きに計らえ

yoki ni hakarae
do as you see fit, (I'll) leave it up to you

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Based on the verb 計らう (hakarau, to manage, arrange, dispose of), with which I was not familiar in the first in the first place, I actually encountered this phrase not in this most common form, but in an interrogative form: よきにはからうっか？ (yoki ni hakarau kka?). So there was a slight challenge to go from what I found in the dictionary to an interrogative form. I say slight, but it was very slight, because I ended, I think, by using:

So, I'll leave it to you, then?

お人好し

ohitoyosi
softie, soft-hearted person, chump, easy mark

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This was kinda harsh to discover the meaning for, because when you look at it, you think, okay, 人 (hito, person) and 好し (yosi, excellent, agreeable), put 'em together and you should have an excellent person. But no. Apparently the meaning is not exactly the reverse, for a soft-hearted person is not a bad person. He or she is just not hard. An interesting insight into Japanese thought. I may edit this after talking more about it with my husband.

にもほどがある

ni mo hodo ga aru
to have a limit, to go to far

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(As you might notice, I'm writing this blog again after years away from it. I'm working on a big project, and find myself looking up the same terms again and again. Figured it was time to write them down, in the hopes of learning them more efficiently.)
This is confusing to me, because it literally means 'there is also an extent for', and when plunked into a sentence, it confused me at first. Being able to find it idiomatically in my go-to online dictionary (wwwjdic) was fortunate for me.
I've found this phrase in particular combination with my next entry, お人好し, (ohitoyosi), as in:

お人好しにもほどがあるぜ、おたく

ohitoyosi ni mo hodo ga aru ze, otaku

That's a bit much, even for a softie like you.