the cat that ate the canary
- idiom
- Informal
:
como el gato que se comió el canario
- He looks like the cat that ate the canary after winning the lottery!
Examples
-
After closing the deal, he looked like the cat that ate the canary.
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She strutted into the room with a grin, proud as the cat that ate the canary.
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You have a smile like the cat that ate the canary—what have you done?
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After finishing her project, Sarah felt like the cat that ate the canary.
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He walked into the meeting with a smug expression, looking like the cat that ate the canary.
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After winning the game, Mark was grinning like the cat that ate the canary.
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She has been acting like the cat that ate the canary ever since her promotion.
Synonyms
4
7.7
A person who talks a lot about themselves to show off
1
4.4
A person who talks too proudly about their successes or things they own
1
4.9
A person who talks proudly about their success or things they own
1
8.2
A person who feels happy about someone else's bad luck and shows it
1
8.3
A person who shows too much pride after a win and annoys others
A person who often brags about what they have done in a proud way
How Proud
Surface Forms
Morphology
the + cat + that + eat + the + canary
Although the literal words ('cat', 'eat', 'canary') yield a clear image of a cat having eaten a bird, the idiomatic meaning of being smug or secretly pleased is a culturally specific metaphor not directly derivable from the constituents. A B1 learner who knows the words but has not encountered the expression is unlikely to infer the conventional sense of self-satisfaction, so the phrase functions as an idiom rather than a transparent description.
Etymology
The cat that ate the canary comes from a simple picture: a cat that has eaten a bright yellow canary would sit looking very pleased and proud. So the phrase is used for someone who looks quietly 'self-satisfied' after a secret or small success.