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Glite Dictionary
frog in the throat

frog in the throat

3 6.7
A temporary hoarse voice that makes speaking hard
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : nudo en la garganta
  • I got a frog in my throat.
  • got a frog in the throat

Examples

  • - I just had a frog in my throat.

    Unfaithfully Yours (1984)

  • No, I just had a frog in my throat.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • And it sounds like you've got a frog in your throat this morning.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • I woke up with a frog in my throat, making it hard to speak clearly.

  • After shouting at the game, I developed a frog in the throat that persisted all day.

  • She cleared her throat to get rid of the frog in her throat before starting her speech.

Synonyms

hoarseness
vsfrog in the throat
1 4.8

A rough, weak voice from a sore or irritated throat

is a brief voice problem caused by dryness or needing to clear the throat

Antonyms

to speak clearly
7 1.0

Say words so other people can easily understand you

How Clear

clear
40 1.0
frog in the throat
  • Informal
3 6.7
scratchy
14 3.7
voicelessness
  • Specialized
1 8.3

Surface Forms

frog in the throat singular
frogs in the throats plural

Morphology

frog + in + the + throat

The meaning 'temporary hoarseness' is a conventional metaphorical idiom and cannot be straightforwardly inferred from the literal constituents 'frog', 'in', 'the', 'throat'; there is no transparent compositional relation. Cross‑linguistic variation in animal‑in‑throat metaphors (e.g. French 'chat dans la gorge') and the arbitrary choice of 'frog' make the sense unpredictable for a B1 learner who only knows the component words.

Etymology

The expression frog in the throat comes from the image of a small frog sitting in your throat and making a croaky sound you try to clear. One popular story says people pictured this when their voice was rough, so the phrase now means 'temporary hoarseness' or 'difficulty speaking'.