Meaning of knock someone over with a feather | Babel Free

Definitions

To greatly surprise or astonish someone.

excessive, idiomatic, informal

Examples

“She hardly, she said, believed her own senses. You might have knocked her down with a feather. She did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels.”

“"I thought you might see what she's up to if she is up to something, and I'm pretty sure she is." / "You could knock me over with a feather," Jane said. "Well! Yes, it does sound as though she's up to something I'd be inclined to say. But you can't be sure with an odd one like Sue. Might be a touch of harmless craziness."”

“Fat cat art collectors shelled out thousands of dollars for works by a popular new painter named DaVinci, and hoity-toity critics called him the king of the canvas – till the world learned that DaVinci is a duck! […] "And when all those snooty people found out they'd been bamboozled by a bird, you could have knocked them over with a feather."”

“Reflecting on being told he was to referee the 1991 World Cup final, the former flanker [Derek Bevan] told Radio Wales, "I couldn't believe it. They talk about knocking you over with a feather, I was in a dream for the rest of the day.[…]"”

CEFR level