8 Phrases You Didn’t Know The Meaning Behind

“Hitting the Hay?” As someone who doesn’t regularly punch random piles of plants, I have many questions.

Why do we have some of these sayings? What do they mean?

“Stealing someone’s thunder.” Unless you are Zeus, thunder theft might not be the first thing on your mind. However, for English playwright John Dennis, this is exactly what happened. 

For his new play he created a method for making the thundering noise, and while his play failed his method for making thunder sounds was used in the widely more successful “Macbeth.” After attending the play, John Dennis was said to proclaim that they had “stolen his thunder.” Who would have thought?

Another common phrase you may have heard is “Getting the Sack.” There are two equally interesting origins to this phrase. 

The first explanation is from Ancient Rome. Murders, and other dangerous criminals, were punished by being tied in a sack and thrown into the Tiber River to prevent any reoccurrence of their criminal behavior. This later evolved into more of a figurative statement. When getting fired you were essentially “getting the sack.”

In France, the saying stemmed from day workers who carried tools in their sacks to each job. Getting fired meant they left with just their sack of tools. 

Hitting the hay is a phrase usually used to describe someone’s intent to go to bed began because of an old practice of stuffing mattresses with hay. Therefore hitting the hay meant to lay on your bed. 

Now let’s not beat around the bush with this one…yea cheap joke. 

Beat around the bush is a common enough phrase that is a little more violent than you might think. A thrilling hobby many years ago was hunting and knocking out birds (don’t ask me, I have no idea why you would do that). 

This “thrilling” sport involved rousing birds from where they might be hiding amongst the bushes so that you could (you guessed it) beat the birds. “Beating around the bush” was the job of the younger boys, who would scare the birds out of their resting spot to send them into the path of the (psychotic?) bird beaters.

Another phrase you might recognize is the saying “Whole Kit and Caboodle.” When I was younger, I always thought the phrase was kitten-caboodle, but alas I just recently found out that was incorrect. 

This saying comes from the combination of two words. Kit, which referred to a drinking cup, was used to refer to someone’s tool kit. Boedel meant someone’s property, the slang Boodle became a word for dirty money. 

Caboodle was a word that referred to “many or multiple” and quickly became interchangeable in the saying. Therefore Kit and Caboodle is a phrase with many alternative ways to say it. Kit-and-Boodle and Kit-and-Caboodle are now all used to refer to “everything.”

If you have ever felt ill enough that you had to stay home, then you have probably used this phrase. Feeling “Under the Weather” is a phrase that first began on ships.

The original phrase was “under the weather bow” and referenced the side of the boat where the weather was worst, literally “under” the weather.

If you have ever watched any old western films, you may have guessed where this phrase comes from. “Riding Shotgun” referred to the person who rode on the passenger side of a carriage carrying a gun to fend off bandits or robbers! Yikes…

One phrase I feel has funny origins is “Letting the Cat out of the Bag.” This saying started in the Middle Ages when sneaky salesmen began to trick customers that were trying to buy a pig by instead putting a cat inside their bag. 

When the customer opened the bag, they would let the cat out of the bag. Hopefully, they kept their receipt!

If you want to hear about more meanings behind phrases, let me know in the comments, and I’ll get you a part two!