be a pain in the neck
Meaning: To be very annoying.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “Filling in tax forms is a real pain in the neck.”
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Recorded from about 1900 as a politer stand-in for ruder anatomical versions of the same complaint.
Other ways to say this
- French: Casser les pieds à quelqu'un — literally: To break someone's feet
- Hindi: नाक में दम करना (naak mein dam karna) — literally: To put breath into someone's nose
- German: Jemandem auf den Keks gehen — literally: To go on someone's biscuit
- French: Un mauvais coucheur — literally: A bad bedfellow
- French: Taper sur le système — literally: To run on the bean / to bang on the system
- English: get on someone's nerves
More idioms — Body & Senses
- be bone idle — To be extremely lazy.
- like pulling teeth — Extremely difficult, especially when trying to get someone to cooperate.
- put one's foot in it — To say something tactless or embarrassing.
- have pins and needles — To feel a prickling, tingling sensation in a limb that has gone numb.
- have a big head — To be conceited; to think too highly of oneself.
- have itchy feet — To feel a restless urge to travel or move on.
More English idioms
- have one's cake and eat it too — To want two things that cannot both be had.
- muddy the waters — To make a situation confusing, often on purpose.
- have the wind in one's sails — To be doing well and moving forward with confidence and momentum.
- talk behind someone's back — To say unkind things about someone when they are not present.
- add fuel to the fire — To make a bad situation worse.
- be on pins and needles — To be very anxious while waiting for something.