Englishtalk turkey
Meaning: To talk seriously, usually about a business deal.
Example: “Enough small talk; let's talk turkey about the price.”
Origin: First recorded in 1824, originally meaning to talk pleasantly rather than frankly — the sense inverted later into the modern one, having a serious, no-nonsense conversation. The popular origin story, printed widely through the 1800s starting with Niles' Weekly Register in 1837, has a white hunter dividing game with a Native American companion by proposing "I'll take the turkey and you the buzzard, or you the turkey and I the buzzard" — every version of the split somehow leaving him the turkey — until his companion cuts through the maneuvering with "talk turkey to me." No evidence supports the exchange ever having happened; it survives as an origin legend rather than a documented event, on top of the plainer historical fact that colonists and Native communities really did barter over wild turkeys.
More English idioms
- apple of one's eye A person or thing that is precious or loved above all else.
- big cheese An important, powerful or influential person.
- bite the dust To be destroyed or ruined beyond repair; slang for "to die".
- bitter pill to swallow A difficult or unpleasant reality to deal with.
- chew someone out To scold someone harshly.
- chew something over To think slowly and carefully about something.
Explore another collection: False Friends
Words that look familiar in another language but mean something else entirely.
Keep exploring