Name: Animal Idioms! Learn English Idioms, Phrases and Expressions with Animals
Uploaded: 2020-06-08T07:30:03.000Z
Duration: 8 min 54 s
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Transition words & phrases

The English language can be confusing because we have so many different idioms, expressions,

In this video I'll help you learn fifteen different English idioms involving animals

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And if everyone could give me a thumbs up at some point during the video that would

So the English language is full of a number of different phrases that don't quite make

Today we're going to look at fifteen different idioms, fifteen different expressions all

of them involving animals and I'll explain to you exactly what they mean.

The first ones we're going to look is ones that involve flies.

So there's two expressions involving flies, there's probably more, but I'm just going

to look at two, the first one is: wouldn't hurt a fly.

So let's imagine that you have a really really big friend, huge muscles, really tough

looking guy, but in his heart he's a very very gentle person.

So you would describe that person as: He wouldn't hurt a fly.

So he, he's even though he's so big and strong he wouldn't even hurt something as

The second expression involving flies is: dropping like flies.

So for instance let's say you forgot to water all of your flowers in your flowerbed

and they are all starting to die at the same time you would describe them as: They are

The second animal that has phrases or idioms associated with it is the chicken.

And we'll look at one phrase involving chickens and that's the phrase: To chicken out.

So let's say you and your friends are going to dive off of a really high diving board.

You go up, you get to the end of the diving board, and you become afraid.

We would describe that as: Chickening out.

Your friend would say: You chickened out!

You didn't dare dive off the high diving board.

The next animal where we'll look at a phrase or two is the pig.

So we'll look at three phrases involving pigs.

The first one describes me quite well and that's: To be pig headed.

You could say Bob the Canadian is pig headed.

And what that would mean is that I am stubborn.

That I don't like to do something if I don't want to do it.

The next phrase involving pigs is to pig out.

To pig out is to sit down at a meal and to just eat like crazy, to eat really fast, to

And we would say: Oh man he's really pigging out!

So it means to eat a lot, sometimes to eat a lot really quickly.

The last phrase involving pigs is: When pigs fly.

And this essentially means that something will happen when pigs fly.

Now we all know pigs can't fly, so when we say “When pigs fly.”

what we actually mean is that it will probably never happen.

The next animal where we'll look at a phrase or two is the elephant.

And we'll look at one phrase with the elephant and the phrase in English that we say quite

And the elephant in the room refers to something that no one wants to talk about.

So let's say you're at a party and someone has done something bad, but no one actually

Maybe someone has been arrested or something horrible.

So the elephant in the room is the subject that no one wants to talk about.

The next animal we'll look at that has interesting phrases is the cow.

And we'll look at two phrases involving the cow.

One is: To have a cow or Don't have a cow.

And when we say, “Don't have a cow!” we're actually saying don't make a big

To have a cow is to get overly upset about something.

To have a cow is to be overly emotional about something.

The second phrase we use with cows is the phrase: 'Till the cows come home.

So basically the 'till the cows come home means you know he did it 'till the cows

So he did for a very very very long time.

If you were to say: He likes to work 'till the cows come home, it basically means that

The next animal where we're going to look at a phrase or two is the bear.

So the bear we have one saying English about the bear and it's: Don't poke the bear.

And essentially “Don't poke the bear” means don't disturb something or someone

if you think that something bad will happen.

So for instance a good example is if I'm having a nap, my wife might say to my children,

“Don't poke the bear!” if they're trying to wake me up, because they know if

they wake me up from my nap I will be grumpy.

So don't poke the bear means don't mess with something, don't interfere with something

The next animal we'll look at is the rat.

And we have one saying with rats, there's probably more, but we have one saying with

And to smell a rat is to be suspicious of something.

To smell a rat is to think something's going on here, and I'm not quite sure what it

The next animal we're gonna look at is the goat.

So we have a saying with goats called: To not let someone get your goat.

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Animal Idioms! Learn English Idioms, Phrases and Expressions with Animals

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