Discover the definitive compilation of Spanish sayings. The most used sayings in Spanish arranged alphabetically with their meaning and their equivalent in English. Improve your Spanish thanks to IL Spanish!
English: To bark up the wrong tree
Comments and History:
Expresses the idea of going to the least likely place for help, using the action of two former sailors who were used to arriving at ports where they were given wood or coal for the boilers of their boats.
English: never look a gift horse in the mouth
Comments and History:
When someone receives a gift they should do so without questioning its value, accepting it for how it is.
The final part of the idiom comes from the custom of checking horse’s teeth to know their health status and age.
English: Put your trust in God, and keep your powder dry
Comments and History:
Not only only do you have to pray for God to help us; we ourselves must do everything possible. It can be understood as “God helps those who helps themselves”.
English: Desperate times call for desperate measures
Comments and History:
However bad something is, our solution and effort will be greater.
English: Tell that to the marines!
Comments and History:
An expression used as a way to discourage someone from thinking something.
English: It’s good fishing in troubled waters
Comments and History:
In troubling moments, someone will benefit. The expression comes from real fisherman, who would be in choppy water, but it meant there were lots of fish.
English:To make a mountain out of a molehill
Comments and History:
Surrender at the first hurdle. Be excessively overwhelmed by a problem.
English:The early bird catches the worm
Comments and History:
The earlier we do things, the better the results will be.
English: To throw money out the window
Comments and History:
The goes back to the beginning of the 19th century, near the city of Bejar, famous for the quality of its sausages, where a famous sausage maker, Constantino Rico, lived – known as “el choricero”.
This man had several workers put in the basement of his home. One of them had the weird idea of tying a dog to the leg of a bench, using a chain of sausages instead of a chain.
A young boy soon came – the son of a factory worker – to give a message to his mother, he saw what was happening and immediately took to spreading the news that in the house of the “Choricero”, they tied up dogs using sausages.
The expression, needless to say, was immediately accepted in the town and became a synonym for the exaggeration of the demonstration of wealth, opulence and waste.
English: to end up with the short end of the stick
Comments and History:
Expression alluding to misfortune of having to put up with a bad situation, as happened when girls were paired with the ugly guys at dances.
English: to lower one’s guard
Comments and History:
To lose focus when it’s not so important to be so careful. The expression comes from sports.
English: clean slate
Comments and History:
Sentence to describe forgetting about debts, mistakes, etc… and continue as if nothing had happened.
English: To be conspicuous by his absence
Comments and History:
In Roman times there was a custom of showing portraits of ancestors of deceased people at their funerals.
The historian Tacitus, in his third installment of “Anales” at the funeral of Junis -widow of Casio and sister of Bruto (murderer of Julio Cesar)- told how everyone noticed the absence of Bruto and Casio’s portraits. The lack of images was so evident that you could say it was as if the spaces where their portraits should have been were “shining”.
English: speech is silver, but silence is golden
Comments and History:
Advice for those that speak too much, without thinking about what they’re .
English: to look for a needle in a haystack
Comments and History:
Represents something difficult.
English: everyone has his hobby horse
Comments and History:
Phrase used to reflect how much someone believes their own opinions.
English: by hook or by crook
Comments and History:
One of the most threatening phrases, means by any means necessary, any means possible should be taken to accomplish a goal.
English: To be left holding the bag
Comments and History:
According to medieval tradition, when a body was discovered in suspicious circumstances and it wasn’t possible to identify the murderer, the town had to pay a fine called the homicidium or omecillo.
Because of this, to avoid paying the fine, people took the body to a neighboring village, so they could take responsibility.
English: To blame someone
Comments and History:
Among the ancient customs of the Church and Inquisition, the people showing their remorse after a sin, were given a wax candle and covered in a woolen cloth called sambenito blessed by a priest.
English: To sponge a meal
Comments and History:
This dates from the period when students wore a cape and hat, during the Golden Age.
Like good students, they were greedy because of their exhaustion, which meant responding to the demands of university life. As many of them came from distant parts of big cities, they had nowhere to go when the hunger was unbearable.
For this reason, they had to use their intelligence to get things to eat. One of the things they did was to enter uninvited to baptisms, birthdays or important weddings, greeting everyone but staying silent during the ceremony in order to not get caught out, and noticing all the nice food that was served.
This type of “guest” were discriminatorily called capigorrones, from which came the expression comer de gorra.
English: mind that you don’t lavish your gifts upon the ungrateful
Comments and History:
A warning that those who are rude with their colleagues will one day betray us.
English: where there’s smoke, there’s fire
Comments and History:
This expression means that when someone says something bad to someone else, there has to be a reason for it.
English: when pigs fly
Comments and History:
Means never. I.e. there’s little chance that frogs will grow hair.
English: two heads are better than one
Comments and History:
Decisions taken with someone else are the best. Only one can make a mistake, while more than one can see difficulties with more clarity.
English: To hit the nail on the head
Comments and History:
This action can be associated with hammering which could not be further from the true meaning of the .
Previously there was a child game called “milestone”, which consisted of fixing a big nail into a rod at a certain distance from the participants who, from their place, threw iron arrows, with those hitting the milestone winning the game.
As the target was usually iron, the expression came to be used in another sense, meaning finding a solution to something complicated or difficult.
English: Pig in a poke
Comments and History:
Back in the past, when the food wasn’t very plentiful, people used to hunting cats and passed off them as a rabbit because without skins, the cats are like the rabbits.
English: To shout it from the rooftops
Comments and History:
The image of the town crier has existed for many years, even since the Roman period.
Town criers have existed in Spain at least from the 15th century, and were oddly divided into three parts: oficiales, who worked for the Administration; heraldos, who would walk ahead of the nobility to announce the latter’s arrival, and commercial voceadores, who were commissioned by anyone to proclaim services or news.
The usual price of the last category was a “un cuarto”, a unit of money that was worth four Maravedis, so dar un cuarto al pregonero (giving a cuarto to the town crier) meant paying for his services. In time, the sentence has acquired a completely different meaning: condemning the revelation of something, for whatever reason, should not be made public.
English: To put one over on someone
Comments and History:
A long time ago, the presence of rodents presented a great threat to people living in cities, because of the diseases they carried.
It was very common to hear the expression armarla con queso (fight it with cheese) in reference to rat catchers, who used cheese to catch them.
The dársela con queso came to be used metaphorically in colloquial language to mean bait, “scheming” or “cheating”, by which someone attracts another to do something to them, so this expression is interchangeable with caer en la trampa – fall into the trap.
English: wide open
Comments and History:
Expresses the idea that the doors are completely open, without any obstacle in our way. Comes from when doors and windows were in two parts (i.e. double doors).
English: by his/her own hand
Comments and History:
Used to establish authority of a document, so state who wrote/signed it.
English: like father, like son
Comments and History:
Used to make a comparison between members of the same family. Its origin is from the phrase a tal padre, tal hijo, included by Petronius in his “Satyricon”.
English: to rob Peter to pay Paul
Comments and History:
Means how people must stop doing one thing to do another – even though they’re equally important.
English: one sows evil, one will reap it
Comments and History:
Whoever causes danger will normally get it themselves.
English: To sugarcoat something
Comments and History:
Medicine has always been regarded as having an unpleasant taste.
In modern times, pills are coated with sugar to make the taste nicer, resorting to dorar la píldora (goldening the pill) so it seems more attractive.
From this comes the expression dorar la píldora, which we use in everyday language to describe what we do when we make something bad seem better.
English: to sleep off a hangover
Comments and History: To get rid of a hangover by sleeping.
English:The course of life
Comments and History:
According to Greek mythology, the Parcae or Moirai – gods of life and death – were three sisters, daughters of Nix, personification of the night: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.
These were the controllers of fate. Each of them had a specific task: Clotho was in charge of putting it together; Lachesis or Laquesis rolled it up and Atropos, the implacable, cut it when that person’s life was coming to an end.
The thread of happiness was made of white wool; that of misfortune was black wool, and those person who had gone through both were formed with a mix of wool.
The expression el hilo de la vida – thread of life is used today to mean fragility, weakness and breakability of our life.
English: the very same
Comments and History:
A sentence confirming the identity of the person we’re speaking to.
English: All this and heaven too
Comments and History:
The origin of this is from a group of knights from Jerez during the Reconquista wars.
These knights managed to capture fifty Moors, among whom was Abdullah, mayor of Ronda, and his nephew, Hamet.
The mayor was released with the payment of money, but none of the others, not even Hamet, was released, despite the efforts of the king himself, Juan II de Castilla.
The knights -particularly the wife of one of them- demanded the payment of 100 dobles (Castilian currency) for their release.
The king ordered Hamet to be moved to the Corte, but because of the disagreement between the king and the knights, the town soon coined the phrase “quedarse con el oro y el moro” – keep your gold and the moor.
Over time, this phrase is used to denote someone who is asking for too much.
English: you break it, you buy it
Comments and History:
Places responsibility for something on whoever uses it.
English: Years of plenty
Comments and History:
According to the bible, sometimes the Pharaoh had a worrying dream: he saw how seven fat cows were devoured by skinny ones.
Disconcerted by such a sight, he called his fortune-tellers, but none could interpret it.
Finally the Pharaoh called Jose, son of Jacob and Raquel, who was a prisoner in one of the Pharaoh´s prisons, and he explain to the Pharaoh that the seven fat cows symbolized the next seven years, which would be prosperous, while the seven skinny cows represented shortage and poverty.
The phrase el tiempo de las vacas gordas refers to a period of material wealth, while the phrase el tiempo de las vacas flacas means the opposite.
English: the shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot
Comments and History:
When something lacks consistency or explanation in the face of such obviousness.
The HTML CheatSheet has its built-in editor where you can preview the document you are working on.
English: before you can say Jack Robinson
Comments and History:
Means “very quickly”, without anyone realizing what happened, like the rooster who sings very early, at dawn, very quickly.
English: To start off on the right foot
Comments and History:
Refers to something that has started in favorable conditions.
English: to be between a rock and hard place
Comments and History:
To be in a delicate situation, without any obvious exit, like the former swordsmen who found themselves between their opponent and a wall.
English: To be flat broke
Comments and History:
Previously in judicial investigations, there were four questions to the interviewee: are you healthy?, are you clever?, are we lovers?, and the feared fourth question: do you have money?
Apparently they answered yes to all but the fourth question.
When the investigation involved a poor person, he always said no to question four.
English: to be in one’s element
Comments and History:
To feel comfortable in a place or situation.
English: To have one’s head in the clouds
Comments and History:
Babia is a region in the province of León, Spain, quite infertile and far from populated areas where today there are important marshes for hydraulic power.
During the Middle Ages, the kings of Leon chose this area as a getaway from the problems of the court – to unwind.
The King’s absences often provoked worry in his subjects when they were told the king was in Babia.
The expression became colloquial and came to be used to describe someone with a lack of interest in something, or lack of concentration.
These days we use it to say someone is distracted.
English: This is the life!
Comments and History:
Jauja is the capital of the Peruvian province of Junín, famous for its fertile soil and its inhabitants’ good health.
During the colonisation period it was a place of rest, especially for those with respiratory problems, and its fame spread to Spain.
The writer Lope de Rueda, influenced by the news of this place, gave the name Jauja to a fictitious city called “La tierra de Jauja”, in which he describes it as a place of gold, where money grows on trees.
The fantasty stuck, and esto es Jauja and vivir en Jauja mean to be in a great place.
English: one good turn deserves another
Comments and History:
When someone receives a favor from another, we probably have to return the favor at some point. Ironically, the idiom is also used to return offensive remarks as well.
English: to bury the hatchet
Comments and History:
Traditional ritual by the Indians of North America as a sign of ceasefire, which consisted of sitting on the ground together, forming a circle, in which people took a puff of a pipe and passed it round. In English it is the equivalent to bury the hatchet, another signal of pacification, since the hatchet was a North American aboriginal war symbol.
English: part and parcel of a job
Comments and History:
The annoying bits that come with the job.
English: to wastes one’s breath
Comments and History:
To speak about something unuseful or uninteresting.
English: a cat wearing gloves doesn’t catch mice
Comments and History:
It’s obvious that a cat with gloves couldn’t catch anything, because its claws would be out of use. Use this expression to express that to do a job properly you must do it boldly and in the most straightforward way possible.
English: a leopard can’t change its spots
Comments and History:
It’s not easy to change the way we think, live and act. A person is born with their characteristics, and it’s difficult to change them.
English: to turn a blind eye to something
Comments and History:
Means to want nothing to do with something, even though they know it exists.
English: To make one’s mouth water
Comments and History:
Literally it means to make one’s mouth water..
English: The coast is not clear
Comments and History:
For several centuries the Spanish Levante (the Mediterranean coast between Valencia and Murcia) was the target of invasions by Berber mercenaries who sailed from northeast Africa.
The towns on this coast found themselves in constant danger, and in order to prevent the attacks they built numerous watch towers on the coast, at first sight of the enemy they would shout “There are moors on the coast”, alerting people of imminent danger.
The system lasted for a long time, until peace was negotiated with the Berber kings, but the warning cry came to be a familiar expression to warn someone of something or someone dangerous.
In the opposite sense, the expression No hay moros en la costa is used to say “the coast is clear”.
English: I smell a rat
Comments and History:
Used to express that someone believes someone else is hiding the truth. Its origin is in the Middle Ages, when they used to make purses made of cat skin that were hidden among clothing (hence “encerrado” – closed).
English: cast your bread upon the water
Comments and History:
Good deeds must be done unselfishly.
English: to split hair
Comments and History:
Analyze with extreme care, without losing its meaning.
English: forewarned is forearmed
Comments and History:
He who works with precaution is safer than he who doesn’t.
English: from bad to worse
Comments and History:
To be going through a bad moment in which circumstances appear to only be getting worse, instead of better. It could be compared to the phrase “salir de Guatemala y caer en Guatepeor” – to leave Guatemala and end up in ‘Guatepeor’.
Try to figure out the solution of the Rubik’s Cube with the online simulator. See how far you can get.
English: In full armor
Comments and History:
This expression, which is usually used to refer to people that are really dressed up, has its origins in the former uses of cavalry. The was applied to knights who would usually take all their weapons for combat, which were made of shining steel, and sparkled in the sun. That is to say, the knights were dressed to the nines.
This legend also gave rise to the expression arma blanca.
With the passing of time, the idiom “ir de punta en blanco” has come to be used to describe people dressed immaculately.
English: to go for wool and come home shorn
Comments and History:
To be surprised by something unexpected. It comes from the act of cutting -“cutting the hair or wool of animals”- according to tradition the original phrase comes from when a sheep would go to have its wool cut, and would return shaven, surprising the other sheep.
English: to come to blows
Comments and History: Clear and straightforward, fighting, resorting to physical aggression without even trying to talk it out.
English: to up and go
Comments and History: To just leave to another place, comes from when a street musician must leave because he’s a annoying everyone and has to go to another place.
English: A cloud hanging over you
Comments and History:
According to Horacio in “Odas” and Cicerón in “Tusculanas”, Damocles was a courtier of Dionisio I, El Viejo (4th century, AC), tyrant of Siracusa, who he was jealous of for his apparently comfortable life.
The king, with the aim of teaching him a lesson, he decided Damocles would substitute him during a banquet, but would place above his head a bare sword, suspended from a horse mane.
In this way, Damocles could understand the brevity and unstableness of the luxury of being monarch.
The phrase “la espada de Damocles” has been used for a long time, to express the presence of an imminent danger or threat.
English: the exception proves the rule
Comments and History:
Almost all rules – particularly spelling – have exceptions to confirm the rules.
English: Faith will move mountains
Comments and History:
Biblical phrase for when someone has unshakeable faith, they can achieve anything, as difficult as it may seem – like moving a mountain.
English: Strike while the iron is hot
Comments and History:
The Romans personified the goddess Ocasión as a beautiful, naked woman with wings, as a symbol of the brevity with which good occasions or opportunities would pass.
English: Third time lucky!
Comments and History:
Optimistic expression that says after having failed twice, the next time will be successful.
Its origin seems to be in vocabulary of fights, where the fighter who knocks his opponent down three times wins.
English: union is strength
Comments and History:
Motto on the coat of arms of the Republic of Belgium and expresses idea of joint effort.
English: to read between the lines
Comments and History:
Know how to interpret what is said, even if it’s not explicitly said in the text.
English: courtesy and valour are not mutually exclusive
Comments and History:
You can be caring and understand with someone, without being demanding.
English: easy come, easy go
Comments and History:
Criticism to power, success and wealth without any effort put in. As easily as they got it, they could lose it.
English: skill is stronger than strength
Comments and History:
More if gotten from softness than violence.
English: it’s a fool’s consolation to think everyone is in the same boat
Comments and History:
We can’t console ourselves by it happens to everyone.
English: to put one’s foot in it
Comments and History:
To make a mistake, generally from clumsiness, like when someone literally puts their leg in a hole, crack or ditch.
English: to die with your boots on
Comments and History:
Means to die while working – metaphor for taking the best out of bad situations. It comes from the characteristics of soldiers, who died at war in the middle of fighting and with all their uniform on.
English: much ado about nothing
Comments and History: Expression taken from the title of one of William Shakespeare’s classics, applying to situations with a lot of fuss but not positive result.
English: by all means
Comments and History:
Expression to accept someone request, or accept someone’s apology. Can be used instead of “de nada”.
English: bad luck always comes in threes
Comments and History: Taking the number “three”, this figure links figures and facts.
English: the longest night will have an end
Comments and History:
As much as someone is suffering, it shouldn’t last long.
English: every cloud has a silver lining
Comments and History:
Every bad thing has a good attached.
English: to not sleep a wink
Comments and History:
To not be able to sleep all night.
English: time must take its course
Comments and History:
Means we musn’t pressure ourselves to do something.
English: actions speak louder than words
Comments and History:
The results are what call the shots, as opposed to the reasons given. The sentence could be likened to the expression “el camino del Infierno está lleno de buenas intenciones” – the path to hell is full of good intentions.
English: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
Comments and History: Form of the Law of Talión (Exodus, XXI, 24) for which revenge is urged for whoever does bad.
English: out of sight, out of mind
Comments and History:
Things that are far away or not seen are less important that what is within sight. The phrase in Spanish also highlights the danger of being far away when in a relationship.
English: to carry the can
Comments and History:
To be punished unfairly for a crime that wasn’t committed, to be the “chivo expiatorio” – scapegoat.
English: to crash somebody down
Comments and History:
Literally, to stop or interrupt someone in a discussion or in an action with a short response. Literally: to stop a cart.
English: you can’t get blood out of a stone
Comments and History:
Ask for the impossible. The elm is a tree with excellent wood, but not pears.
English: to hit the roof
Comments and History:
To shout loudly, to strongly complain about something, as if someone if shouting so loudly their voice will hit the ceiling.
English: to put in question
Comments and History: To doubt something.
English: to make one’s hairs stand on end
Comments and History:
To be terrorized or extremely nervous. When someone suffers a great shock, the skin stands on end and feels like a chicken.
English: to burn the midnight oil
Comments and History:
To read or study a lot. Refers to the amount of that we spend studying/analyzing something next to the lamp that lights up our desk.
English: where there’s a will, there’s a way
Comments and History:
Expresses the power of the force of will to get something done.
English: you reap what you sow
Comments and History:
Whoever lives chaotically will have a bad ending.
English: he who pays the piper, calls the tune
Comments and History:
Expresses the power of money for he who has it.
English: to take one’s hat off
Comments and History:
Action of uncovering the head was a mark of respect to your neighbor, particularly women. Nowadays it means to give respect and admiration to someone for something they’ve done.
English: to make a mountain out of a molehill
Comments and History:
According to sacred scriptures, it was custom to take off clothes when in a moment of hysteria, as a means to recognize the mistakes made. Nowadays, it’s used to describe people who make a great to-do about nothing.
English: Rome was not built in a day
Comments and History:
Big companies can’t do everything in a day. They need time, patience, sacrifice, just like Rome.
English: you only live once
Comments and History:
Warns of the brevity of human life, used to justify doing something that you’ll only get one chance to do. Equivalent of the Latin “carpe diem”.
English: to backfire
Comments and History: Fail, or achieve the opposite of what you wanted.
English: it’s a piece of cake
Comments and History: Something very easy, as simple as eating bread.
English: to be a nobody
Comments and History:
Not having any value, be useless, that same as a zero to the left of figures.
English: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em
Comments and History:
Advice for something incapable of defeating their enemy, for whom it’s suggested to form an alliance with them instead.
English: to go one’s own little way
Comments and History: Expression used to demonstrate the disinterest of someone by a result of something.
English: to be made for each other
Comments and History:
Could be described with the phrase “good couples, God brings them up and brings them together”, since it refers to the virtues and defects that bring two people together. It refers to the fact that two people seem “made to measure” for one another.
English: to have eyes in the back of one’s head
Comments and History:To be very prepared and alert, as if that person had eyes on the back of their neck and could see everything that happens behind them.
English: I wish the Earth would swallow me up!
Comments and History:
Phrase used by someone, usually embarrassed, who wants to avoid being seen by anyone.
English: knock on wood or touch wood
Comments and History:
A familiar superstitious expression to keep bad things from happening that consists in touching or hitting softly any wooden object. This millenary custom is based on the belief that the genie of fire and vitality resided in the wood grain.
English: take to heart
Comments and History:
Take something very seriously, such as a joke or criticism.
English: to pull somebody’s leg
Comments and History:
Simple and straightforward, it means to joke about someone without meaning to offend.
English: six of one, and half a dozen of the other / good and bad
Comments and History:
Expresses the way good and bad things alternate. Like in the preparation of plaster mix used by bricklayers – lime then sand.
English: let’s get to the point
Comments and History:
Phrase that favors a more direct way of this, getting rid of anything unnecessary, just like the most important part of cereal: grain. It’s the opposite of “irse por las ramas” – to go off on a tangent.
English: to fit like a glove or To come in the nick of time
Comments and History:
To describe something happening or fitting exactly as desired or at the most appropriate moment.
English: to see stars
Comments and History:
To feel a very strong pain.
English: seeing is believing
Comments and History:
When someone doubts something, they say “si no lo veo, no lo creo” – if I don’t see it, I don’t believe it.
English: alive and kicking
Comments and History:
Being alive and well. Used to refute someone’s death or ill health.
Did you like this post?
The Best Teachers. The Best Method. The Best E-learning platform.
If you are taking your lessons in Oaxaca, Mexico, why not consider exploring some the interesting places to take your…
Playa del Carmen is a friendly and peaceful city. But like many other cities in mexico, pickpocket, petty crimes, we…
The people of Mexico have no distinction between supernatural and natural powers. This is a belief common in Latin America.…
If you want to get a breather from your Spanish language lessons in Playa del Carmen, why not consider learning…
Mezcal is any distilled beverage of the agave family of plants. Basically, tequila is mezcal, but not all mezcals are…
So was it the famous Antonio Gaudí that created Barcelona? Numerous famed artists have been answer for this question.