From cold feet to getting something off your chest, we use body-based idioms every day to express doubt, love, relief, embarrassment—and everything in between. In this episode of Lexiconned, TJ dives into 15 popular expressions rooted in the human body, tracing their histories from biblical texts to Broadway, battlefield slang to Shakespearean drama. It’s a linguistic anatomy lesson you’ll feel in your bones.
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Have a favorite idiom that involves the body? Drop it in a review or hit us up @LexiconnedPodcast.
Episode Highlights
- 🦶 Why “cold feet” has military roots (and financial ones too)
- 🪥 The biblical mystery of “by the skin of your teeth”
- 🧼 Why elbow grease has outlasted every cleaning product
- 🕶️ Admiral Nelson and the birth of “turn a blind eye”
- 👏 The difference between lending a hand... and giving one
Sources :
- Oxford English Dictionary
- “The Etymologicon” by Mark Forsyth
- PhraseFinder.org
- Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary
- Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
- American Speech (1942 usage of “put your foot in your mouth”)
- The Southern Literary Messenger (1852 usage of “long in the tooth”)
- New York Times (1921 usage of “get under your skin”)
- King James Bible, Book of Job
- Andrew Marvell (1672 use of “elbow grease”)
- Sir Walter Scott, The Antiquary (1816)
Share your suggestion for words or phrases, thoughts on the episodes, or just engage with us on Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/lexiconnedpodcast/
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