not on your life
- idiom
- Informal
:
ni hablar
- Not on your life.
And as a scholar, I can tell you my first response was not on your life.
- And as a scholar, I can tell you my first response was not on your life.
Examples
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Not on your life.
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Not on your life, you big hunk.
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Not on your life!
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Not on your life!
Blog text (26) -
I will not lend you my car, not on your life!
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If you think I'm going to agree to that, not on your life!
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She said she would go skydiving, but I told her, not on your life!
Synonyms
20
4.2
Says that something must never happen in any situation
3
5.6
It is not true or possible in any way
1
6.7
To never do something, no matter what happens
1
7.9
Refuse to do something no matter what happens
1
8.1
A firm no when someone asks for something
People say this to show that something will not happen
How Likely
Surface Forms
Morphology
The negator 'not' plus 'life' gives a plausible inference of 'not during your life' (i.e. never), so part of the meaning is recoverable from the constituents. However the preposition 'on' and the fixed idiomatic function as a strong emphatic negator are non‑literal and not fully predictable from the words alone, so a B1 learner may not reliably derive the exact emphatic sense without prior exposure.
Etymology
Not on your life may come from the strong image of refusing something so completely that you would not do it while you are alive. So today people use it to say 'definitely not' or 'never'.