The last straw that broke the camel's back
Meaning: The final small burden that causes a total collapse.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Category: Animals
Origin: The English proverb's documented ancestor uses a different animal and a lighter object: Archbishop John Bramhall wrote in 1655 of the last feather that breaks the horse's back, and variants with feathers, horses, and overloaded carts circulated through the 1700s. The camel arrives in the 1800s, and Charles Dickens fixed the modern image in Dombey and Son in 1848, writing of the last straw breaking the laden camel's back. The point of the proverb is cumulative rather than dramatic: no single straw could injure anything, and the one that finally does the damage is not special in itself — it simply happens to be the one added after the load had already reached the limit, which is exactly why the trivial final provocation gets the blame for a collapse that everything before it had prepared. The phrase is sometimes said to come from an Arabic fable, but no such source has been identified, and the claim appears to stem from confusion with the separate tale of the camel that gets its nose into the tent.
More idioms — Animals
- To have a frog in your throat — To have difficulty speaking due to hoarseness.
- It's raining cats and dogs — It's raining extremely heavily.
- To have butterflies in your stomach — To feel nervous excitement.
- القرد بعين أمه غزال (al-qird bi-ʿayn ummihi ghazāl) — Parents see their children as beautiful no matter what.
- اللي ما يعرف الصقر يشويه (illi ma yaʿrif al-ṣaqr yishwīh) — Failing to recognize something valuable and destroying it.
- Matar a cobra e mostrar o pau — To prove you actually did what you claim.
More English idioms
- Bob's your uncle — And there you have it; simple as that.
- take the biscuit — to be the most outrageous or remarkable thing; to win or excel.
- beat around the bush — to avoid addressing the main point; to speak indirectly.
- give someone the cold shoulder — to deliberately treat someone with indifference or ignore them.
- let the cat out of the bag — to reveal a secret inadvertently.
- pull your punches — to hold back; to be less forceful than you could be.