Idiom
broken reed
Meaning
Something or someone very fragile or unreliable.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Do not trust him, he is a broken reed.”
“I hoped my old car would get me to the city, but it proved a broken reed and stopped halfway.”
“The politician realized that his former allies were a broken reed when they refused to support his new policy.”
Examples
simple
“Do not trust him, he is a broken reed.”
contextual
“I hoped my old car would get me to the city, but it proved a broken reed and stopped halfway.”
complex
“The politician realized that his former allies were a broken reed when they refused to support his new policy.”
Origin
From broken + reed (with reference to the quotation in 1611, see below).
Key words
Related idioms
- Updated