to hurt a fly
14
5.1
- idiom
- Informal
:
no hacer daño ni a una mosca
- I would never hurt a fly.
- never hurt a fly
Examples
-
He would not hurt a fly.
-
Why, that little girl wouldn't hurt a fly.
-
"Mother never hurt a fly."
Fiction book (1991) -
I know my wife, and she couldn't hurt a fly.
-
You wouldn't hurt a fly.
-
Peter wouldn't hurt a fly.
-
Why, he wouldn't hurt a fly.
Fiction book (1997) -
Mark wouldn't hurt a fly.
Fiction book (1999) -
He wouldn't hurt a fly.
-
He never hurt a fly in his life, always showing kindness to everyone he met.
Synonyms
4
3.5
To treat someone or something gently to avoid harm
1
7.0
Treat someone very gently to avoid upsetting them
How Gentle
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituents 'hurt' and 'fly' literally describe harming a small insect, and in the common negative frame ('wouldn't hurt a fly') learners can pragmatically infer the intended meaning of extreme gentleness from the literal words. However, the sense is conventionalized hyperbole rather than strictly compositional—its idiomatic, context-bound use is not fully predictable from the parts—so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Hurt a fly gives a simple picture: a person so gentle they would not hurt even a tiny fly. That's why it is used to say someone 'would not harm anyone'.