“Beat a dead horse”in other languages
Waste effort on something that has no chance.
English
Arabic
Croatian
Lithuanian
EnglishArabicCroatianLithuanianSame idea, different pictures
English beats a horse that will never get up. The others turn to work that produces nothing: striking cold iron in Arabic, which won't bend, threshing empty straw in Croatian, mlatiti praznu slamu.
Lithuanian pours from the empty into the leaky, pilstyti iš tuščio į kiaurą: nothing to start with, and nowhere to keep it.
More sayings in other languages
- Fly off the handle
- Not see beyond the end of one's nose
- Get back on one's feet
- Get on someone's nerves
- Get out of hand
- Get the short end of the stick
- Gild the lily
- Give someone the brush-off
- Give someone the cold shoulder