Spoken English

What idioms in spoken English refer to animals? Look at the examples below, and read the explanations to learn some interesting phrases.

Using animal idioms in conversational English

A lot of idioms and phrases in English refer to animals. Often, the connection is with a particular characteristic of the animal, as in the examples here.

Slow and fast

It’s well known that snails move very slowly. So, if you work at a

⋅ snail’s pace, you work very slowly:

Work on the new airport is moving ahead at a snail’s pace. At this rate, it won’t be finished for another few years. By contrast, bees fly directly and quickly to flowers where they can find food. So, if you make a beeline for something, you go straight ⋅ there, moving as fast as possible:

As soon as we arrived at the party, we made a beeline for the food.

Birds generally get to places more quickly because they can fly there directly. So, the expression as the crow flies means “in a straight ⋅ line”:

The village is only a kilometre away as the crow flies, but it’s much further by road.

Birds are also able to see things from the air or from the top of a ⋅ tree, so a view of something from above is a bird’s-eye view:

Here’s a bird’s-eye view of the new block of flats.

Cats, rats and other animals

Anyone who owns a cat will know that they can sleep for short periods and then be wide awake again. So, a short sleep (of about 10 ⋅ to 30 minutes) is called a catnap:

I’m really tired. I think I’ll have a catnap before we go out. Cats also have a good sense of smell and can usually smell if a mouse or a rat is somewhere near, even if they can’t see it. So, if you smell a rat, you suspect that something is not as it seems or that ⋅ something dishonest is happening:

My mum keeps asking me why I come home so late. Do you think she smells a rat? (= Do you think she suspects that I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing?)

Rats are also used in scientific experiments, and from this we get the expression the rat race. It refers to a way of life in which people ⋅ compete with each other for money and power:

I’m taking a year off after university. I don’t feel ready to join the rat race just yet.

Donkeys are used for doing heavy work, so in British English, if you do the donkey work, you do the part of a job that is difficult and ⋅ boring, but also necessary:

The manager received all the praise for the project, but his team did the donkey work.

When lions kill an animal, they usually eat the best parts and leave the rest for other animals. So, if you have the lion’s share ⋅ of something, you have most of it or the best part of it:

When our father died, my sister got the lion’s share of his money.

Chickens and geese

Chickens are not very courageous birds. So, if you chicken out

of doing something, you avoid doing it, either because you’re afraid ⋅ or you don’t want to make the effort:

Come on, we agreed that we’d both complain to the boss. Let’s not chicken out now.

Geese — especially wild geese — are difficult to catch because they fly away. So, if something is called a wild goose chase, it is a search that requires a lot of effort and has little or no chance of ⋅ success:

I tried to get my money back from the insurance company, but it was a wild goose chase.