Ficar a ver navios
Meaning: To be left disappointed and empty-handed.
Language: Portuguese
Literally: To be left watching ships
Category: Nature
Origin: From Portugal's seafaring past, of those who waited in vain at the harbor for ships that never brought what they hoped.
Equivalents in other languages
- Russian: Остаться с носом (Ostat'sya s nosom) — literally: To be left with the nose
More idioms — Nature
- Att kasta yxan i sjön — To give up completely.
- At save den gren over man selv sidder på — To undermine your own position.
- At gå over åen efter vand — To do something in a needlessly roundabout way.
- Mennä metsään — To go completely wrong.
- Házet flintu do žita — To give up prematurely.
- Havadan sudan konuşmak — To make idle small talk.
More Portuguese idioms
- Onde Judas perdeu as botas — In the middle of nowhere; the back of beyond.
- Acertar na mosca — To be exactly right; to hit the bullseye.
- Dar com os burros n'água — To fail despite all your effort.
- Tirar o pai da forca — Said of something done in frantic urgency.
- Chorar de barriga cheia — To complain when you have nothing to complain about.
- volta e meia — Occasionally or now and then.
From our proverbs
- Whether you boil snow or pound it, you will have but water from it. — Effort cannot change the fundamental nature of something inherently worthless or insignif…
- Give a dog a bone in his mouth, and you may kick him and he can't bite. — A person preoccupied with satisfying their immediate desires loses the ability to resist…
- I have a bone in my arm. — Claiming disability to avoid work reveals one's character through convenient excuses.