Idiom
cruel mistress
Meaning
Something which has both significant positive and negative aspects.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The ocean is a cruel mistress for any sailor.”
“He loves his job as a professional athlete, but he knows that fame is a cruel mistress.”
“While the stock market brought him immense wealth, he soon learned that it is a cruel mistress that can take everything away in an instant.”
Examples
simple
“The ocean is a cruel mistress for any sailor.”
contextual
“He loves his job as a professional athlete, but he knows that fame is a cruel mistress.”
complex
“While the stock market brought him immense wealth, he soon learned that it is a cruel mistress that can take everything away in an instant.”
Origin
From cruel + mistress
Key words
Related idioms
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