sell one's soul to the devil
Meaning: To give up one's principles in exchange for money, power or success.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “Critics say the band sold their soul to the devil when they wrote that car commercial jingle.”
Category: The Absurd
Origin: From the old legend of a pact with the devil, best known through the story of Faust, which Christopher Marlowe dramatized in Doctor Faustus (around 1592).
Equivalents in other languages
- French: Vendre son âme au diable — literally: To sell one's soul to the devil
More idioms — The Absurd
- a Tower of Babel — A noisy scene where many people speak different languages, or a confusion of voices.
- like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic — Doing something pointless while a disaster happens.
- come down on someone like a ton of bricks — To criticize or punish someone very severely.
- it doesn't take a rocket scientist — Something is easy to understand; no special intelligence is needed.
- a bottomless pit — Something that uses up endless money or effort; also a person who is always hungry.
- blow a gasket — To lose one's temper completely.
More English idioms
- eat humble pie — To admit one was wrong and apologize humbly.
- year in, year out — Continually, every year without change.
- sign one's own death warrant — To do something that will cause one's own ruin.
- child's play — Something very easy to do.
- at death's door — Very close to dying, or feeling extremely ill.
- play devil's advocate — To argue against something, not out of belief, but to test the argument.
From our untranslatable words
- Prozvonit — To call someone's phone and hang up after one ring, so they call you back and you save th…
- Boketto — Staring off into the distance with your mind pleasantly empty, thinking of nothing at all.
- Pålegg — Anything you might put on a slice of bread — cheese, ham, jam, egg, whatever — gathered u…