danger is one's middle name
- idiom
- Informal
:
el peligro es su segundo nombre
- He thinks danger is his middle name when he rides his motorcycle.
Examples
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He leaped off the cliff without hesitation—clearly, danger is one's middle name.
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Don't you realize that danger is his middle name?
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For Alice, danger is one's middle name; she goes mountain climbing every weekend.
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When it comes to investing in volatile markets, some say danger is one's middle name.
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For Alice, danger is one's middle name; she goes mountain climbing every weekend.
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He leaped off the cliff without hesitation—clearly, danger is one's middle name.
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People often say danger is one's middle name when they hear about his extreme sports adventures.
Antonyms
How Risky
- Informal
16
3.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
danger + be + one + middle + name
The phrase uses a metaphorical mapping from 'middle name' (a part of one's identity) to a trait, so a learner can partly infer that the person is characteristically risky from the literal words. However, interpreting this specific construction as a conventional humorous idiom requires cultural/idiomatic knowledge and is not fully predictable from the constituents alone, so it is only partially transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Danger is one's middle name comes from the funny image of a person whose actual middle name is Danger. That picture makes us think they always take risks, so the phrase is used to say 'someone who likes danger' or 'is often risky'.