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Raining cats and dogs

Meaning

Raining very heavily.

Origin

There's no definitive origin, there is a likely derivation.

One supposed origin is that the idiom derives from mythology. Dogs and wolves were attendants to Odin, the god of storms, and sailors associated them with rain. Witches, who often took the form of their familiars - cats, are supposed to have ridden the wind. Well, some evidence would be nice. There doesn't appear to be any to support this notion.

It has also been suggested that cats and dogs were washed from roofs during heavy weather. This is a widely repeated tale.

Another suggestion is that 'raining cats and dogs' comes from a version of the French word 'catadoupe', meaning waterfall. But there is no evidence of it.

The much more probable source of 'raining cats and dogs' is the prosaic fact that, in the filthy streets of 17th/18th century England, heavy rain would occasionally carry along dead animals. The animals didn't fall from the sky, but the sight of dead cats and dogs floating by in storms could well have caused the coining of this colourful phrase.

Example

• We can't go now because it's raining cats and dogs.

A bolt from the blue

Meaning

A complete surprise, like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky.

Origin

This has the feel of a Shakespearian or Biblical expression but, as a phrase in English, it isn't as old as it sounds. There are several forms of it: 'out of the blue', 'a bolt out of the blue', etc. The earliest citation is Thomas Carlyle, in The French Revolution, 1837:

"Arrestment, sudden really as a bolt out of the Blue, has hit strange victims."

Example

• The news of his marriage was a bolt from the blue.

Storm in a teacup

Meaning

A situation where people get very angry or worried about something that is not important.

Origin

This idiom probably derives from the writing of Cicero, in De Legibus, circa 52BC. The translation of his "Excitabat fluctus in simpulo" is often given as "He was stirring up billows in a ladle". Other cultures have versions of the phrase in their own languages. The translation of the Netherlands version is 'a storm in a glass of water', and the Hungarian 'tempest in a potty'.

'Tempest in a teapot' is the version that is used most often in the USA, and hardly at all in other places, but which nevertheless appears to have a Scottish rather than an American origin.

Example

• I think it's all a storm in a teacup - there's probably no danger to public health at all.