# a still small voice

idiom · CEFR C1

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/a-still-small-voice
Updated: 2026-07-29

## Meaning

A quiet inner prompting of conscience or intuition.

## Examples

- A still small voice told her it was time to leave.
- Amid all the confident advice, a still small voice kept warning him that the deal was too good to be true.
- Everyone around the table was urging her to sign, and the numbers all agreed with them, but a still small voice she had learned over the years not to ignore told her, quietly and unshakably, to walk away.

## Origin

The phrase comes from the story of the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19. Hiding on a mountain, Elijah witnesses a great wind, an earthquake, and a fire, but God is in none of them; then, in verse 12, comes a still small voice — and it is in that near-silence, not in the spectacle, that he finds the divine. The whole force of the passage is the contrast: the truly important thing arrives not as a dramatic display but as something quiet and easily missed. In English a still small voice is the hushed inner prompting of conscience or instinct — the faint, insistent sense of what is right or true that speaks under the noise, and that you have to be quiet enough to hear.

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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.