take the wind out of someone's sails

English

Alternative forms

knock the wind out of someone's sails

Etymology

Referring to the idea of a ship that intercepts the wind of another, causing it to slow or stop.

Pronunciation

Audio (AU) (file)

Verb

take the wind out of someone's sails (third-person singular simple present takes the wind out of someone's sails, present participle taking the wind out of someone's sails, simple past took the wind out of someone's sails, past participle taken the wind out of someone's sails)

(idiomatic) To discourage someone greatly; to cause someone to lose hope or the will to continue; to thwart or minimize someone's ambitions.
- c. 1860, Louisa May Alcott, "Aunt Kipp":
  "I tell you Van Bahr Lamb is a fool." . . .
  But Polly . . . completely took the wind out of her sails, by coolly remarking,— "I like fools."
- 1922, Frances Hodgson Burnett, chapter 31, in The Head of the House of Coombe:
  Could he have some elderly idea of wanting a youngster for a wife? Occasionally an old chap did. Serve him right if some young chap took the wind out of his sails.
- 1990 May 27, Serge Schmemann, "German rightist quits after party suffers setback," New York Times (retrieved 17 July 2011):
  [T]he Republicans . . . have been repeatedly battered in the polls since German unification became a mainstream German concern and took the wind out of their sails.
- 2011 April 14, "Quotes of the Day," Time:
  "It took the wind out of our sails," he says. "I had no Plan B. I was a wreck."

Synonyms

flummox, stultify, stymie, thwart

Translations

to discourage someone

Dutch: iemand de wind uit de zeilen nemen
Finnish: lannistaa (fi)
German: jemandem den Wind aus den Segeln nehmen
Italian: remare contro, scoraggiare (it), disilludere, mettere in ginocchio
Polish: przygaszać impf, przygasić pf