⛵ “take the wind out of someone’s sails”

What it means: To weaken someone’s position just as they were making a point — often by answering their argument before they make it.

“Quoting the report before he could quote it at her took the wind out of his sails.”

Where it comes from

Square-rigged sailing: a windward ship could blank its neighbour’s sails by stealing the wind. The tactic is old; the metaphor is at least 18th-century.

← a breeze · all weather & the sea idioms · raining cats and dogs →

raining cats and dogson cloud ninein the same boatweather the storma breeze

More phrases, including proverbs from dozens of languages, at Proverbs of the World.