milk in the coconut
- idiom
- Informal
- When the accounts don't add up, you know there's milk in the coconut.
Examples
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There's definitely some milk in the coconut if the project keeps getting delayed.
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Everyone sensed milk in the coconut when she started acting so strangely.
-
There's definitely some milk in the coconut with this plan!
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I feel like there's milk in the coconut here; something isn't right.
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Everyone sensed milk in the coconut when she started acting so strangely.
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There's definitely some milk in the coconut if the project keeps getting delayed.
-
When the accounts don't add up, you know there's milk in the coconut.
Synonyms
6
8.8
An unknown cause that makes many people act or feel the same way
1
9.9
A small problem that spoils a good situation
Something surprising and out of place in a situation
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'something is amiss or unusual' cannot be predicted from the literal constituents 'milk', 'in', 'the', and 'coconut' — a learner who knows those words would expect a literal reference to coconut milk rather than an assessment of oddness. The expression is idiomatic and likely culture-specific rather than following regular compositional patterns, so a B1 learner would not reliably infer the intended sense from the parts alone.
Etymology
Milk in the coconut may come from the odd image of finding milk inside a coconut—two things that don't belong together. That's why the phrase means 'something is wrong'.