chip on someone's shoulder
- idiom
- Informal
:
resentimiento
- Well, it's obvious you've got a chip on your shoulder because you know you're never going to get married.
Examples
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John has a chip on his shoulder the size of Rhode Island.
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You let him come in here with a chip on his shoulder.
-
Pretty face, big chip on your shoulder.
-
That certainly explains the giant chip on his shoulder.
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He did have this chip on his shoulder, though.
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Which means you were at that school by the grace of someone else's charity, hence the chip on your shoulder.
-
We had a good thing going with Hal, but you had this big chip on your shoulder because you weren't being treated like Chaplin.
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He constantly walks around with a chip on his shoulder, ready to argue over anything.
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Her chip on her shoulder makes it difficult for her to make new friends.
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You can tell he has a chip on his shoulder whenever someone brings up his past.
Synonyms
172
4.2
A long, strong feeling of anger toward someone who treated you unfairly
75
3.4
A strong feeling of anger and hurt toward someone
1
9.8
A feeling of being easily upset or offended by small things
1
7.4
A deep bitter anger you feel after being hurt
Antonyms
How Resentful
Surface Forms
Morphology
chip + on + someone's + shoulder
Knowing the literal parts ('chip' as a small piece, 'on', 'someone's', 'shoulder') does not lead a B1 learner to the meaning 'tendency to be easily offended' because there is no transparent compositional link between a small object on a shoulder and resentment. The phrase is culturally and historically motivated (idiomatic) rather than predictable from its constituents, and cross-linguistic equivalents vary, so learners need prior exposure to learn this sense.
Etymology
The idiom chip on someone's shoulder comes from a dare: one popular story says a person would put a small chip of wood on their shoulder and dare someone to knock it off to start a fight. That's why the phrase now means 'to be easily offended' or 'to feel angry about something from the past'.