teach your grandmother to suck eggs
Meaning: To give advice to someone who knows far more than you.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “Explaining knitting to my aunt is teaching my grandmother to suck eggs.”
Category: Food & Drink
Origin: Sucking the contents out of a raw egg was a skill an old woman would already know well. The phrase is recorded from the early 18th century.
Equivalents in other languages
- Chinese: 班门弄斧 (bān mén nòng fǔ) — literally: To show off your axe at Lu Ban's gate
More idioms — Food & Drink
- make a hash of something — To do something very badly.
- Tomber dans les pommes — Suddenly losing consciousness — possibly derived from the older expression 'être dans les…
- Avoir la moutarde qui monte au nez — To be getting angry.
- Pédaler dans la semoule — To be confused and getting nowhere.
- Raconter des salades — To tell lies or tall tales.
- En faire tout un fromage — To make a big deal out of nothing.
More English idioms
- beauty is in the eye of the beholder — What one person finds beautiful another may not.
- cut your coat according to your cloth — Live within your means.
- a guilty conscience needs no accuser — Guilty people give themselves away.
- big deal — Said sarcastically to mean something is not important at all.
- play into someone's hands — To act in a way that unintentionally helps an opponent.
- play dumb — To pretend not to know or understand something.
From our compliments & insults
- Tienes mucho corazón — You're extraordinarily generous and warm — you give more than you need to.
- Tienes mucho arte — You have natural flair, charm, and creative talent — an effortless quality that can't be…
- Eres todo un personaje — Said with deep affection: you're unforgettable, one of a kind, impossible to replace.