take breath away
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take (one's) breath away
To cause someone to feel intense, typically pleasant, astonishment or awe. Did you see Kathy's gorgeous new dress? It took my breath away. The play is stunning—it will take your breath away!
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
take someone's breath away
1. Lit. to cause someone to be out of breath due to a shock or hard exercise. Running this fast takes my breath away. Mary frightened me and took my breath away.
2. Fig. to overwhelm someone with beauty or grandeur; to surprise or astound someone. The magnificent painting took my breath away. Ann looked so beautiful that she took my breath away.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
take (one's) breath away
To put into a state of awe or shock.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
take one's breath away, to
To astound. This expression is pure hyperbole: one is so flabbergasted that one stops breathing. (The same idea is conveyed in the adjective breathtaking.) In the mid-nineteenth century Robert Browning used the term in Dramatis Personae (1864): “He never saw . . . what was able to take his breath away.”
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer