go underground
Meaning: To go into hiding or begin operating in secret.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “After the leak, the source went underground and stopped answering reporters.”
Category: Daily Life
Origin: "Underground" for secret activity is linked especially to the resistance movements of the Second World War, which were known as the underground. Earlier, it described the Underground Railroad that helped enslaved people escape in 19th-century America.
Equivalents in other languages
- French: prendre le maquis — literally: to take the maquis
More idioms — Daily Life
- the knives are out — People are openly hostile and ready to attack someone, usually to bring them down.
- lay it on with a trowel — To flatter or exaggerate very heavily and without subtlety.
- go down fighting — To keep struggling until the very end, even when defeat is certain.
- that's all she wrote — That is the end of it; there is nothing more.
- the butt of the joke — The person everyone laughs at or makes fun of.
- roll in the hay — To have casual sex.
More English idioms
- not believe one's ears — To be so surprised by what one hears that it seems impossible.
- cross the Rubicon — To take an irreversible step.
- like a bear with a sore head — In a very bad, irritable mood.
- dead on one's feet — To be utterly exhausted.
- fall flat on one's face — To fail completely and embarrassingly.
- burst someone's bubble — To destroy someone's illusion or happy belief.
From our tongue twisters
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- Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. — A relentless 'p' plosive drill; a peck is an old dry measure of about nine litres.
- Unique New York. — Three words that jam the 'y/n/k' sequence together — repeat it and it collapses into 'you…