there are no flies on him
- idiom
- Informal
:
no se deja engañar
- She tried to trick him, but there are no flies on him.
Examples
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You won't catch him making a mistake—there are no flies on him.
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You can trust him; there are no flies on him.
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Everyone knows there are no flies on him when it comes to business deals.
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Why do you think there are no flies on him?
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Everyone knows there are no flies on him when it comes to business deals.
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She tried to trick him, but there are no flies on him.
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You won't catch him making a mistake—there are no flies on him.
Synonyms
5
6.7
Able to understand new things very quickly
4
4.8
Able to think and give smart fast answers
Clever and not easily tricked
Antonyms
How Clever
Surface Forms
Morphology
there + be + no + fly + on + him
The meaning 'quick-witted, not easily deceived' is not derivable from the literal parts (no + flies + on + him); a B1 learner who knows the individual words would most likely take it literally (absence of insects) rather than infer cleverness. This is a conventionalized, culture-specific idiom with a metaphorical meaning unpredictable from its constituents, so it is opaque.
Etymology
There are no flies on him may come from the image of a person who is always moving so flies cannot sit on him. Because flies do not settle on someone who is quick and alert, the phrase came to mean 'clever' or 'not easily deceived'.