diarrhea of the mouth
1
9.9
- idiom
- /ˌdaɪəˈriːə əv ðə maʊθ/
- Offensive
:
hablar por los codos
- Logorrhea, it's diarrhea of the mouth.
Examples
-
Whenever I'm with you, I get diarrhea of the mouth.
-
She tends to have diarrhea of the mouth during meetings, often talking more than necessary.
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His diarrhea of the mouth at the party bored everyone and made the conversations go off-track.
-
After a few drinks, her diarrhea of the mouth about her travels made it hard for others to get a word in.
Synonyms
2
9.9
Talking too much in a way that is hard to stop and hard to follow
A lot of talking about small unimportant things
A habit of talking a lot about unimportant things
Antonyms
How Talkative
Surface Forms
Morphology
diarrhea + of + the + mouth
The phrase combines 'diarrhea' (an uncontrolled outflow) with 'mouth', so a learner who knows both words can plausibly infer a metaphorical meaning of excessive or uncontrollable talking. Because this is a coarse metaphorical extension rather than a fully literal compositional pattern and relies on pragmatic/conventional usage, it is only partially predictable to learners.
Etymology
Diarrhea of the mouth comes from a strong image: diarrhea is a fast, uncontrolled flow, and the phrase imagines words pouring out of the mouth the same way. So, it is used to describe someone 'talking too much' or who cannot stop speaking.