Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to fog a mirror

to fog a mirror

1 9.9
To be barely alive or only a little able to do things
  • idiom
  • Archaic
translation icon : estar vivo

Examples

  • Tiny aspiration, not enough breath to fog a mirror...

    Fiction book (1996)

  • I'm soft-spoken; my breath would hardly fog a mirror.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • During the job fair, if you could fog a mirror, employers were interested in speaking with you.

  • In the competitive job market of the 1990s, just being able to fog a mirror was enough to get considered for a position.

  • The new managers were hired simply because they could fog a mirror, regardless of their qualifications.

Surface Forms

fog a mirror infinitive

Morphology

fog + a + mirror

Literally, 'fog' + 'mirror' yields the easily understood action 'make a mirror misty,' but the attested idiomatic senses ('to be alive' or 'to show minimal competence') depend on the inference that fogging a mirror requires breath/life and so signals basic ability. This pragmatic/metaphorical link is plausible but not fully predictable for a B1 learner without exposure, so the expression is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Fog a mirror comes from the small act of breathing on a mirror, so the glass gets a thin fog. If someone can only fog a mirror, they show the smallest sign of life or skill, so the phrase means 'to be alive' or 'to have barely enough ability'.