Left Align with Column Width {p{cm}} [duplicate]

Question

I am trying to create a table something like:

Idioms                Definition 

A dime                Anything that is common, inexpensive, 
a dozen               and easy to get or available any where. 
Beat around           To treat a topic, but omit its main points, 
the bush              often intentionally or To delay or avoid
                      talking about something difficult or unpleasant.
Bite off more         To take on more responsibility than you can manage.
than one can chew

...

What I did is

 \documentclass{book}
    \begin{document}
    \thispagestyle{empty}
    \noindent
    \begin{tabular}{p{6cm} p{12cm}}
    Idioms & Definitions
    {The Remaining portions of work goes here.} 
    \end{tabular}
    \end{document}

But I get

Idioms Definition

A         dime        Anything that is common, inexpensive, 
a dozen               and easy to get or available any where. 
Beat       around     To treat a topic, but omit its main points, 
the     bush          often intentionally or To delay or avoid
                      talking about something difficult or unpleasant.
Bite off       more   To take on more responsibility than you can manage.
than one can chew

...

I think this has do with allignment. The above sample is not the exact I got in Latex. But it reflects my problems. With l instead of p, I can get the desired left alignment. but no table size. But with size fized, alignment goes wrong.

Some elements in preamble might be missing like I have used packages like setspace and anysize.

Source: The table above is extracted from Wikipedia for representing my situation.

Answer 1

use tabularx and also \RaggedRight

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{tabularx,ragged2e}
\begin{document}
\noindent
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{ 
  @{} % no \tabcolsep on the left side
  >{\RaggedRight}p{6cm}% let the p column typeset ragged right
  X % dynamical column width 
  @{} % no \tabcolsep on the right side
 }
    Idioms & Definitions
    {The Remaining portions of work goes here.} 
\end{tabularx}
\end{document}