dead on one's feet
Meaning: To be utterly exhausted.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “After a double shift at the hospital, the nurse was dead on her feet.”
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: "Dead" for extremely tired was in use by the early 19th century; the phrase "dead on one's feet," still upright but hardly alive, appears later in that century.
Equivalents in other languages
- French: être à ramasser à la petite cuiller — literally: to be fit to be picked up with a small spoon
More idioms — Body & Senses
- fall flat on one's face — To fail completely and embarrassingly.
- one's blood runs cold — To be filled with sudden fear or horror.
- poke one's nose into — To pry or interfere in matters that do not concern one.
- rot one's brain — To dull one's mind through mindless activity.
- put someone back on their feet — To help someone recover, financially, physically or emotionally.
- Aunt Flo is visiting — A euphemism for having one's menstrual period.
More English idioms
- lay it on with a trowel — To flatter or exaggerate very heavily and without subtlety.
- burst someone's bubble — To destroy someone's illusion or happy belief.
- prick up one's ears — To suddenly start listening closely.
- rise from the ashes — To be reborn or rebuilt after destruction or failure.
- stir up a hornet's nest — To cause a lot of trouble or anger, often by provoking people.
- go down fighting — To keep struggling until the very end, even when defeat is certain.
From our tongue twisters
- How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? — A 'w/ch/ck' drill that accelerates comically — and nobody really knows the answer.
- The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick. — Believed by Guinness to be among the hardest in English — 'six/sick/sheikh/sheep' blur in…
- 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.