one leg at a time
- idiom
- Informal
:
uno a la vez
- Everyone, whether rich or poor, puts their pants on one leg at a time, just like everyone else.
Examples
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When it comes to daily tasks, remember that we all do things one leg at a time regardless of our backgrounds.
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It doesn't matter who you are; we all experience life one leg at a time in our own unique ways.
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I don't know any white man who puts his pants on one leg at a time from 1930 who thinks black, white, Jews, Chinese, gays, and women are equal.
Blog text (18)
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal image — doing things sequentially "one leg at a time" — is directly derived from the constituent words and is easily understood as a step-by-step action. However, the conventionalized figurative meaning (that everyone is fundamentally the same when doing ordinary tasks) is a pragmatic extension of that image and requires cultural/conventional knowledge, so the sense is not fully predictable from the parts alone.
Etymology
One leg at a time comes from the simple image of getting dressed: people put on trousers or socks by doing one leg first and then the other. That plain picture shows everyone does the same small tasks, so the phrase means 'no different' or 'just like everyone else'.
