butter wouldn't melt in someone's mouth
Meaning: Someone looks innocent or proper, but probably is not.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “She looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but she started the food fight.”
Category: Food & Drink
Origin: The person seems so cool and demure that butter would not even melt in their mouth. The saying is recorded in English in the 16th century.
Equivalents in other languages
- Japanese: 猫をかぶる (Neko wo kaburu) — literally: To wear a cat on your head
- French: On lui donnerait le Bon Dieu sans confession — literally: You would give him the Lord without confession
- French: Sainte Nitouche — literally: Saint Touch-Not
More idioms — Food & Drink
- a pie-crust promise — A promise that is easily broken.
- the honeymoon period — The early, happy stage of a new relationship or arrangement, before problems appear.
- all grist to the mill — Everything can be turned to use or advantage.
- you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs — Achieving something worthwhile involves some loss or damage.
- in a pickle — In a difficult situation.
- jam tomorrow — A promise of good things in the future that never arrive.
More English idioms
- raise a hue and cry — To make a loud public protest.
- have the inside track — To have an advantage over others.
- a horn of plenty — An abundant source of something.
- a Sophie's choice — An agonizing choice between two terrible options.
- kicking and screaming — Very reluctantly, protesting all the way.
- at someone's beck and call — Always ready to obey someone's orders.
From our untranslatable words
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- Hüzün — A collective, spiritual melancholy felt by a whole city — the sadness of Istanbul's faded…