to get on someone's wick
- idiom
- /ɡɛt ɒn ˈsʌmwʌnz wɪk/
- UK
- His constant talking gets on my wick.
Examples
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The kids' loud games really get on her wick when she's trying to read.
-
If you keep interrupting me, you're going to get on my wick fast.
-
His constant humming is beginning to get on my wick at work.
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Don't get on her wick with your complaints!
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His constant humming is beginning to get on my wick at work.
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If you keep interrupting me, you're going to get on my wick fast.
-
The kids' loud games really get on her wick when she's trying to read.
Synonyms
To make someone very angry
Make someone slightly angry or bothered by small repeated actions
Make someone very annoyed or upset
Annoy someone again and again to make them react
Make someone annoyed, often by small things
To annoy someone with small repeated actions
To annoy someone again and again so they feel bothered
Make someone angry or annoyed on purpose by teasing them
To bother someone again and again until they feel angry
To do or say something on purpose to annoy someone
To make someone angry
To make someone angry or upset
To make someone very annoyed or angry
To annoy someone or make them feel defensive
To annoy someone or make them angry
To annoy someone so they become defensive
Antonyms
How Annoying
- Informal
- UK
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is an informal British idiom where the key word 'wick' has no clear literal relation to 'annoy' (it normally refers to a candle wick or is dialectal/slang), so knowing 'get', 'on' and 'someone's' does not allow a B1 learner to derive the idiomatic meaning. The expression is dialectal and unpredictable cross-linguistically, making the sense resistant to compositional inference.
Etymology
The idiom get on someone's wick may come from an old British image of a candle: a wick is the little string that burns, and if someone gets on it they light that small flame and make you hot and angry. That's why the phrase means 'to annoy'.