land in someone's lap
Meaning: Something desirable comes to someone without effort or expectation on their part.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Category: Daily Life
Origin: The lap is the body's passive receptacle — a seated person's lap exists only while they are sitting, does no work, and receives whatever happens to fall into it. That makes it the natural figure for something obtained without being pursued, and the phrase carries a faint edge because of it: what lands in your lap is not something you earned. There is an older and more elevated relative in the same image. Homer describes matters as lying on the knees of the gods, meaning outcomes are settled by powers beyond human influence, and English inherited that as being in the lap of the gods. The everyday phrase is attested from the 1600s and keeps the essential idea while dropping the divinity: the outcome arrived, and you had nothing to do with it.
More idioms — Daily Life
- out of spoons — Exhausted of energy or resources, usually mental or emotional.
- thrash out — To discuss and resolve a contentious issue thoroughly through frank dialogue.
- play Cupid — To act as a matchmaker by trying to bring two people together romantically.
- cut a rug — To dance with energy and style, particularly in early twentieth-century jazz or swing sty…
- hang upon — To be deeply absorbed in or emotionally dependent on someone or something.
- cut above — Superior in quality or ability; better than most.
More English idioms
- wet one's whistle — To have a drink.
- bad apple — A person of bad character whose presence corrupts or damages others or a group.
- bad blood — Persistent hostility or deep resentment between people.
- pull teeth — To accomplish something with great difficulty, requiring much effort and persistence.
- stumbling block — An obstacle or barrier that impedes progress or causes difficulty.
- feet first — Dead, or in the manner of a corpse.