take potshots at
Meaning: To criticize someone in a casual, unfair or opportunistic way.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “The columnist spends every Sunday taking potshots at the city council.”
Category: Daily Life
Origin: A "pot shot," recorded from 1836, was a shot taken only to get food for the pot, with no regard for sporting rules. By the 1920s it meant a cheap or random attack, including in words.
Equivalents in other languages
- French: envoyer des piques — literally: to send pikes
More idioms — Daily Life
- go underground — To go into hiding or begin operating in secret.
- 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.
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.
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