Englishland in someone's lap
Meaning: Something desirable comes to someone without effort or expectation on their part.
Example: “The perfect apartment just landed in our lap when a friend moved abroad.”
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 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.
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