milk in the coconut
- idiom
- Informal
:
algo no cuadra
- When the accounts don't add up, you know there's milk in the coconut.
Examples
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There's definitely some milk in the coconut if the project keeps getting delayed.
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Everyone sensed milk in the coconut when she started acting so strangely.
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There's definitely some milk in the coconut with this plan!
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I feel like there's milk in the coconut here; something isn't right.
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Everyone sensed milk in the coconut when she started acting so strangely.
-
There's definitely some milk in the coconut if the project keeps getting delayed.
-
When the accounts don't add up, you know there's milk in the coconut.
Synonyms
Something surprising and out of place in a situation
A small problem that spoils a good situation
An unknown cause that makes many people act or feel the same way
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'something is amiss or unusual' cannot be predicted from the literal constituents 'milk', 'in', 'the', and 'coconut' — a learner who knows those words would expect a literal reference to coconut milk rather than an assessment of oddness. The expression is idiomatic and likely culture-specific rather than following regular compositional patterns, so a B1 learner would not reliably infer the intended sense from the parts alone.
Etymology
Milk in the coconut may come from the odd image of finding milk inside a coconut—two things that don't belong together. That's why the phrase means 'something is wrong'.
