fish bowl
- noun
- /fɪʃ boʊl/
:
pecera
- She felt like she was in a fish bowl during the meeting, with all eyes on her as she presented her ideas.
Examples
-
It's like it starts to build and it's we're just too live swimming in a fish bowl and it's it's better voice than mine.
-
Living in a small town can feel like being in a fish bowl where everyone knows each other's business.
-
Of course, they are inside a fish bowl, and so we know that while they are able to do whatever they like inside that bowl, they are limited to the fish bowl.
Blog text (2) -
It's our job to see that we are in the fish bowl and that we are creating a cool clique because we count ourselves on the outside.
Blog text (29) -
After the scandal, their lives became a fish bowl, with reporters watching their every move.
Synonyms
5
5.8
A situation where people have no privacy and are always watched
1
6.5
A situation where others watch you closely and you have no privacy
Antonyms
How Private
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sociological sense arises directly from the literal image of fish in a bowl being visible to everyone; a learner who knows 'fish' and 'bowl' can easily map that image onto a situation with little privacy. Although metaphorical, the mapping is straightforward and cross-linguistically accessible, so the meaning is immediately inferable from the constituents.
Etymology
Fish bowl paints a picture: imagine people inside a clear glass bowl where everyone can look in, so the phrase means 'having no privacy' or 'being watched'.