be in someone's shoes
Meaning: to understand someone's perspective; to experience their situation.
Language: English
Literally: to be in someone's shoes
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Rests on the observation that shoes are among the most personal things a person owns — shaped by one wear, uncomfortable on anyone else, and carrying the marks of exactly where their owner has walked. Occupying them, even hypothetically, therefore stands for taking on a whole position rather than merely imagining a feeling. There may be an older layer beneath the metaphor: in several Northern European legal customs a shoe was handed over as the physical token confirming a transfer of property or authority, and the Book of Ruth records a comparable practice of removing a sandal to seal a transaction. Whether the English idiom descends from any of that or simply reinvented an obvious image is not settled; the phrase itself is attested from the 1700s.
More idioms — Body & Senses
- white as a sheet — extremely pale; shocked or frightened.
- sharp as a tack — intelligent; quick-witted; keen-minded.
- pull someone's leg — To joke or tease someone by telling them something untrue.
- Avoir la gueule de bois — To be hungover.
- To turn a blind eye — To deliberately ignore something you know is wrong.
- To bite the bullet — To face something painful with gritted courage.
More English idioms
- the real McCoy — the genuine article; something authentic and high quality.
- cry over spilled milk — to regret something past; useless to grieve over unchangeable events.
- go pear-shaped — to go wrong; to develop badly; to become misshapen.
- hard pill to swallow — difficult to accept; unpleasant truth or reality.
- be on cloud nine — to be extremely happy; in a state of bliss.
- get a kick out of something — to enjoy something greatly; to find something amusing.
From our tongue twisters
- Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said the butter's bitter. — A 'b / t / tt' plosive drill that bounces between Betty, butter, and bitter.
- She sells seashells by the seashore. — The definitive 's' versus 'sh' alternation — the tongue has to switch place of articulati…
- Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. — A relentless 'p' plosive drill; a peck is an old dry measure of about nine litres.