# a millstone around your neck

idiom · CEFR C1

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/a-millstone-around-your-neck
Updated: 2026-07-29

## Meaning

A heavy, inescapable burden or responsibility that drags you down.

## Examples

- The mortgage became a millstone around his neck.
- The failing branch was a millstone around the company's neck, draining resources the rest of the business badly needed.
- What had begun as a proud family estate became a millstone around her neck, its endless repairs and taxes swallowing every spare hour and pound until keeping it felt less like an inheritance than a sentence.

## Origin

The image is from a stern warning of Jesus in Matthew 18:6: whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in him to stumble would be better off with a great millstone hung around his neck and drowned in the depths of the sea. A millstone was the massive circular stone used to grind grain — among the heaviest objects in ordinary life — so the picture is of a weight that guarantees you sink without hope of surfacing. Detached from the warning, a millstone around your neck in English is any crushing burden you cannot shake off: a ruinous debt, a hopeless commitment, a mistake or dependant that weighs on you and pulls you steadily under.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.