life's a bitch

9.9

A phrase people use to say life is often very hard and unfair

idiom

Offensive

: la vida es una perra

Sometimes life's a bitch, but you have to keep moving forward.

Examples

When she lost her job, her friend comforted her by saying, "life's a bitch, but things will get better."
After losing his job, John said, 'life's a bitch.'
After failing the exam, he shrugged and said, life's a bitch.
Sometimes I feel like life's a bitch!
After failing the exam, he shrugged and said, life's a bitch.
Sometimes life's a bitch, but you have to keep moving forward.
When she lost her job, her friend comforted her by saying, "life's a bitch, but things will get better."

Synonyms

cruel mistress

vslife's a bitch

Literature

9.1

Something like time or ambition that takes much and gives little

focuses specifically on human existence being frequently difficult and unfair

Antonyms

plain sailing

1 2.8

Easy to do and without problems after it starts

How Negative

life's a bitch

Offensive

9.9

them's the breaks

Informal

1 9.9

Surface Forms

life's a bitch main

Morphology

life's + a + bitch

The phrase literally equates 'life' with 'a bitch'—using 'bitch' in its slang sense of a nasty or notably difficult person/situation—so a learner who knows the constituents can infer that life is being described as difficult or harsh. However, the meaning arises via a derogatory metaphor and slang extension rather than a neutral compositional pattern, so it is not fully predictable or standardly compositional.

Etymology

The saying life's a bitch compares life to a bitch, an old word for a female dog that people used to call something mean or hard. So the phrase means 'life is often difficult or unfair'.