break a leg
Meaning: Good luck, said to a performer before going on stage.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “Break a leg tonight; you'll be wonderful.”
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Theater people consider wishing "good luck" to be bad luck, so they wish the opposite. The phrase is recorded in the early 20th century; theories linking it to bowing or to the actor John Wilkes Booth are unproven.
Equivalents in other languages
- Italian: In bocca al lupo — literally: Into the mouth of the wolf
- Russian: Ни пуха ни пера (Ni pukha ni pera) — literally: Neither fluff nor feather
- French: Merde ! — literally: Shit!
More idioms — Body & Senses
- an eye for an eye — Punishment should match the injury; revenge in kind.
- grease someone's palm — To bribe someone.
- go by shanks' mare — To walk; to travel on foot.
- have a foot in both camps — To be involved with two opposing sides at once.
- deaf as a post — Completely deaf.
- soaked to the skin — Completely wet.
More English idioms
- hey presto — Said when something happens suddenly, as if by magic.
- search me — I don't know.
- set the cat among the pigeons — To say or do something that causes trouble or uproar.
- storm clouds are gathering — Trouble is coming.
- be rolling in it — To be very rich.
- be worth one's weight in gold — To be extremely valuable or useful.
From our compliments & insults
- C'est une vraie chèvre — They're hopelessly stubborn and infuriating — a goat that refuses to be moved.
- Casse-pieds — A massive bore or pain in the neck — someone who wears you down with their irritating way…
- Espèce de patate — You dim bulb — a potato being the very picture of inert, unthinking stodginess.