like blue murder
- idiom
- UK
:
a toda velocidad
- She drove like blue murder to get to the hospital in time.
Examples
-
When the dog got loose, it ran like blue murder across the park.
-
He ran like blue murder to catch the bus.
-
As soon as the bell rang, the students left like blue murder.
-
She drives like blue murder on the highway!
-
She drove like blue murder to get to the hospital in time.
-
He ran like blue murder to catch the bus.
-
When the dog got loose, it ran like blue murder across the park.
Synonyms
75
7.9
Happening very quickly, with great effort or very strongly
13
8.1
Act very quickly and with great effort
8
8.2
Very quickly and with great energy
4
4.7
Very quickly and with great force
4
4.3
To do something as fast and as hard as possible
1
9.2
To do something very quickly or with great effort
1
8.0
In a very quick way, like someone running fast
In a very fast way that happens almost instantly
Antonyms
How Fast
Surface Forms
Morphology
like + blue + murder
The meanings of the constituents ('like' as a preposition/similarity marker, 'blue' the colour, and 'murder' meaning killing) do not compositionally yield the sense 'very fast/with great intensity.' This phrase is idiomatic (likely related to expressions such as 'scream blue murder') and its sense is not predictable from the parts nor widely mirrored across other languages, so a B1 learner would not reliably infer the meaning from the words alone.
Etymology
Like blue murder comes from an older saying scream blue murder. One popular story says people screamed so loudly and wildly that the words blue and murder were used to make the image more extreme, and now doing something like blue murder means doing it 'very fast or with great intensity'.