Family Idioms with Meaning and Examples

 

(Be the) Spitting Image

• Meaning: Have a strong resemblance, often familial
• Example: Look at Madeleine. She’s the spitting image of her mother.

(Born) Out of Wedlock

• Meaning: Illegitimate, born to unmarried parents
• Example: I was born out of wedlock and raised by a single mother.
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Accident Of Birth

• Meaning: Luck in something due to family good fortune
• Example: Yes, he became company vice-president when he was only 23, but that’s an accident of birth – his father is one of the major stockholders.

And His Mother

• Meaning: An intensifier for an inclusive noun or phrase such as everyone, everybody
• Example: Everybody and his mother is going to be at the fireworks. Let’s watch the on television.

Big Brother

• Meaning: Government, viewed as an intrusive force in the lives of citizens; government spying
• Example: Big Brother seems to grow more and more powerful as data about individuals is accumulated on social networks.

Blue Blood (adj.: blue-blooded)

• Meaning: Person of aristocratic background
• Example: The blue bloods generally keep to themselves, but a charity dance is a good place to see them dress up.

Bob’s Your Uncle

• Meaning: The rest is easy; you’re almost finished
• Example: Just enter the update code, register the new software, and Bob’s your uncle.

Father Figure

• Meaning: A mentor, a person who offers guidance
• Example: After I joined the company, Frank was a father figure to me. He gave me lots of valuable advice.

Flesh and Blood

• Meaning: Blood relatives, close relatives
• Example: When all is said and done, few people understand you like your own flesh and blood, even if you don’t get along with them.

Helicopter Parenting

• Meaning: Overattentive child-raising
• Example: The trend these days is toward helicopter parenting. When I was young children had much more independence, and I think it helped them.

Kith and Kin

• Meaning: Family (collectively)
• Example: When you go on a trip, it’s important to buy souvenirs for your kith and kin back home.

Like Father, Like Son

• Meaning: Sons inherit their fathers’ traits and preferences, often even without realizing it.
• Example: John was a great fisherman, and there’s his son Matt out on the water. Like father, like son.

Like Taking Candy from a Baby

• Meaning: Very easy
• Example: Just watch. Getting her to go out with me will be like taking candy from a baby.

My Old Man, My Old Lady

• Meaning: My spouse
• Example: I’d love to go to the mall with you, but I told my old man I’d go to the football game.

Pop the Question

• Meaning: Propose marriage
• Example: I bought a ring, and I’m ready to pop the question to Patricia.

Run in the Family

• Meaning: Be inherited (as a trait) by multiple members of a family
• Example: I’m not surprised Maria has started playing in a band. Musical talent runs in her family.

Small Fry

• Meaning: People or organizations with little influence; children
• Example: We’re still small fry compared to the major companies in the field.

Spare The Rod And Spoil The Child

• Meaning: It is necessary to physically punish children in order to raise them right.
• Example: Marlena is to permissive with her children. Spare the rod and spoil the child, I say.

This Is Not Your Father’s ____

• Meaning: This item has been much updated from its earlier versions.
• Example: You may not have liked this bat in the past. But this is not your father’s Louisville Slugger.

Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water

• Meaning: Eliminate something good while discarding the bad parts of something
• Example: Yes, the sales presentation has problems, but I don’t think we should start fresh with a new one. We don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Up the Duff

• Meaning: Pregnant
• Example: They hadn’t planned to get married, but Janice found out she was up the duff.

Idioms about Baby and Children | Family Idioms

List of useful  baby idioms in English with meaning.

• (Having a) Bun in the Oven: Pregnant
• Babe In Arms: A baby being carried
• Babe In The Woods: An innocent, naive person
• Baby Boomer: A person born in the years following World War II, when there was a temporary marked increase in the birth rate
• Born on The Wrong Side of the Blanket: Born to parents who were not married
• Boys will be Boys: A phrase of resignation used when boys get into trouble or are stereotypically reckless or rowdy
• Child’s Play: A very easy task
• Chip off the Old Block: Someone who resembles a direct ancestor, usually the father
• Like a Kid in a Candy Store: To be so excited about one’s surroundings that one acts in a childlike or silly way
• Sleep Like a Baby: To experience a very deep and restful sleep; to sleep soundly
• Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water: To discard something valuable or important while disposing of something worthless

List of useful mother idioms in English with meaning.

• A face only a mother could love: A very ugly face
• A mama’s boy: A boy or man who allows his mother to have too much influence on him.
• A mother hen: A person who looks out for the welfare of others, especially to an overprotective degree
• A tiger mother: A strict and demanding mother
• At one’s mother’s knee: If you learned to do something when you were a young child.
• Be tied to (one’s) mother’s apron strings: An adult make deeply attached and needing his mother. Dating from the era when mothers wore aprons
• Everyone and his mother: Used to express a large number or a majority of people.
• Expectant mother: A pregnant woman.
• Experience is the mother of wisdom: This idiom is used to mean that people learn from what happens to them.
• He that would the daughter win, must with the mother first begin: This is a proverb which means that if you intend to marry a woman, first try to win her mother on your side.
• Like mother, like daughter: Daughters tend to do what their mothers did before them.
• Mother house: The principle house in a religious order
• Mother Nature: The force that controls the natural world
• Mother’s milk: Something necessary and important
• The mother of all (something): A large collection of a particular type of thing
• To keep mum: To keep quiet about something.