watch one's back
Meaning: To stay alert to hidden threats.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “In that office, you have to watch your back.”
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: The back is the side one cannot see, and so the side an attacker chooses. The phrase is common from the 20th century.
Equivalents in other languages
- Italian: guardarsi alle spalle — literally: to look behind oneself at the shoulders
More idioms — Body & Senses
- set someone's heart racing — To excite or alarm someone.
- forget one's own head — To be extremely forgetful.
- take to one's heels — To run away.
- drag one's feet — To delay deliberately.
- be tone-deaf — To be unable to tell musical notes apart; also, to have no sense of how others feel.
- throw dust in someone's eyes — To mislead someone by distracting them.
More English idioms
- move with the times — To keep up with change instead of clinging to old ways.
- beat the drum for something — To promote something loudly and publicly.
- any old how — Carelessly, with no attention to doing it properly.
- where the sun doesn't shine — Somewhere hidden; also a rude way of naming the body.
- without a fight — With no resistance at all.
- pave the way — To prepare the ground so that something can happen later.
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