raise a hue and cry
Meaning: To make a loud public protest.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “Residents raised a hue and cry when the library was threatened with closure.”
Category: Daily Life
Origin: In medieval English law, the "hue and cry" was the outcry that bystanders had to raise to pursue a criminal, set out in the Statute of Winchester (1285). The phrase comes from Anglo-Norman French.
Equivalents in other languages
- French: À cor et à cri — literally: With horn and with cry
More idioms — Daily Life
- a Sophie's choice — An agonizing choice between two terrible options.
- at someone's beck and call — Always ready to obey someone's orders.
- set one's cap at — To try to attract someone as a romantic partner (dated).
- the big leagues — The highest, most competitive level of an activity.
- rich as Croesus — Extremely wealthy.
- everyone's a critic — A wry reply to unwanted criticism: it is easy to find fault.
More English idioms
- have the inside track — To have an advantage over others.
- a horn of plenty — An abundant source of something.
- kicking and screaming — Very reluctantly, protesting all the way.
- hands down — Easily; without question.
- like a bolt from the blue — Completely unexpected, usually of bad news.
- the pitcher goes to the well once too often — Repeated risk-taking eventually ends in disaster.
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.