in the shadow of
38
6.5
- idiom
:
a la sombra de
- Growing up in a small town, I always felt I was living in the shadow of my more successful sister.
- live in the shadow of
- stand in the shadow of
- work in the shadow of
I grew up in the shadow of southern trees.
- I grew up in the shadow of southern trees.
- Vietnam is mostly in the shadow of the Chinese system.
- And you'll remember that this was all in the shadow of Rwanda and then Kosovo.
- So who are you when you are not in the shadow of your dad, Jordan Peterson?
- A moment of rest, perhaps, in the shadow of a flame tree, if in their cool burning they have shadows.
- I mean, she's poor, you know, she's like living in, you know, in a motel, you know, right near in the shadow of Disneyland.
- So I was raised in the shadows of Vince Lombardi, who famously said winners never quit and quitters never win.
- Ever since then, I've just been living in the, in the, in the shadow of of my of what a specimen I was.
- Beyond it, in the shadow of dark limbs, things that stay uncarriable away.
- You just spent time making these eggs and now you're eating eggs under the in the shadow of an advertisement for something called better than eggs.
Examples
-
Must be hard living in the shadow of a legend, huh?
-
Likewise, tiny Taiwan and Hong Kong have followed their own trajectories in the shadow of huge mainland China.
Academic text (2008) -
I grew up in the shadow of southern trees.
-
People eat and sleep in the shadow of what we do.
-
I have lived in the shadow of that castle my whole life.
-
You're in the shadow of your brother.
-
We're, you know, we're a tiny country that is kind of in the shadow of its large bellicose neighbor.
-
This is about me and your family and all of us who've lived our whole lives in the shadow of your recklessness.
-
Diana turned off the engine, and they sat in the shadow of the Greenhill gates.
Fiction book (1996) -
Ulysses lay panting in the shadow of the largest monument, exhausted by the short climb.
Fiction book (2000)
Synonyms
2
8.0
To be less known or important because someone else is more famous
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The figurative sense (being dominated or less prominent) is a direct metaphorical extension of the literal meaning of 'shadow' combined with the locative 'in' and the relational 'of'; this composition transparently conveys 'being under/in someone else's shadow'. This metaphor is common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would very likely infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
In the shadow of comes from the simple picture of standing in the dark area made by something much bigger, the shadow, like a village under a castle or a person beside a famous sibling. Because the smaller thing is hidden or less noticed, the phrase now means 'living under someone's influence or always being compared to them', often in a way that feels unfair.