English Explanatory Dictionary

water off a duck's back

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Something potentially harmful or hurtful, such as criticism or insult, that nevertheless has no effect or impact on the target.

Word forms

water off a duck's back

Etymology

From the idea that water rolls easily off a duck's back and does not penetrate the duck's feathers.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on W Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary