To let off steam

Meaning: To release pent-up emotion or stress.

Language: English

Literally: To let off steam

Category: Daily Life

Origin: From the steam engine, whose safety valve vents excess pressure before the boiler can burst.

More idioms — Daily Life

• To face the music — To confront the unpleasant consequences of your actions.
• To add insult to injury — To make a bad situation worse by a further offence.
• Aus dem Häuschen sein — To be beside yourself with excitement.
• No dar pie con bola — To get everything wrong; to do nothing right.
• Capire fischi per fiaschi — To misunderstand completely.
• Avere un chiodo fisso — To be obsessed with one idea.

More English idioms

• To butter someone up — To flatter someone to win their favour.
• Russian roulette — Any high-risk activity undertaken needlessly, where disaster may strike without warning.
• pull back the curtain — To expose a hidden truth or reality behind an appearance.
• present company excepted — These remarks do not apply to anyone currently present in this conversation.
• on sufferance — Tolerated reluctantly and only because one has no better choice.
• set in stone — Unchangeable and permanent, fixed beyond modification.

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