Animal idioms: Phrazle Animals

Idioms about animals

This category collects phrases about animals of every kind: pets such as cats and dogs, farm animals such as horses, pigs, chickens and sheep, wild animals, birds, fish and insects. Some phrases name the animal directly; others only borrow its habits, such as a dog's loyalty or a hen's fussing over her eggs.

English has so many animal idioms because, for most of history, people lived and worked side by side with animals. Farmers knew exactly how a hen behaves before her eggs hatch, travelers knew their horses, and everyone had watched a cat stalk a mouse. Old fables, in which animals act like people, added many more. An animal makes an idea easy to picture, and a picture is easy to remember.

Each puzzle on this page is an animal phrase. You know the theme before your first guess, so think of animal names that fit the word lengths on the board.

Animal idioms and what they mean

None of these examples is used as a puzzle, so reading them will not spoil a game.

• Don't count your chickens before they hatch: do not rely on a good result before it has really happened. It is often linked to Aesop's fable of the milkmaid, who plans what she will buy with her milk money and then spills the pail.
• When the cat's away, the mice will play: people relax the rules as soon as the person in charge is gone. Versions of it exist in many European languages and go back to the Middle Ages.
• The straw that broke the camel's back: a small trouble that, added to many others, finally becomes too much. Older versions spoke of the last feather that breaks a horse's back.
• A leopard can't change its spots: people do not change their basic nature. The picture goes back to a verse in the Book of Jeremiah.
• Cock and bull story: an unlikely tale told as if it were true. Nobody knows its origin for sure; one popular explanation points to two old English coaching inns, the Cock and the Bull, where travelers swapped tall stories.
• Copycat: someone who copies what other people do. The word is well over a hundred years old, and nobody knows why the cat got the blame.
• Hogwash: nonsense. The word first meant the kitchen scraps and swill fed to pigs.
• Bellwether: a person or thing that shows which way a trend is going. A wether is a male sheep, and the one wearing a bell led the flock, so shepherds could follow the sound.

Animal idioms FAQ