to cast in someone's teeth
- idiom
- Informal
:
echar en cara
- Whenever they fought, he would cast in her teeth her past failures to hurt her feelings.
Examples
-
She hated when her brother would cast in her teeth every failure from their childhood.
-
Though years had passed, he still cast in her teeth the mistakes she made.
-
After losing the debate, his opponent cast in his teeth the errors from his previous arguments.
-
Don't cast in her teeth her past mistakes!
-
He often casts in my teeth my failures.
-
During every argument, he would cast in her teeth the time she forgot his birthday.
-
She was tired of her friends casting in her teeth the mistakes she made in college.
Synonyms
34
7.2
Make someone feel worse by reminding them of a mistake or failure
8
6.5
To tell someone you are disappointed in what they did
1
6.6
To make someone's bad feelings worse by reminding them of a disappointment
Antonyms
How Harsh
- Offensive
414
6.1
55
2.2
8
6.5
- Informal
∞
1.0
∞
1.0
136
2.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The verb 'cast' (to throw) plus 'in someone's teeth' evokes a physical metaphor of throwing something at a person, which can hint at reproach; comparable constructions (e.g., 'throw in someone's face', Spanish 'echar en cara') make part of the sense inferable cross-linguistically. However, the exact idiomatic meaning 'to reproach by reminding someone of something embarrassing' and the specific phrasing 'in someone's teeth' are somewhat uncommon and phrase-specific, so a B1 learner who only knows the component words would be unlikely to reliably derive the full meaning without prior exposure.
Etymology
Cast in someone's teeth may come from the image of casting something into a person's face, right by their teeth, as a way to shame or hurt them. So, it came to mean 'to reproach someone by reminding them of something embarrassing'.