Word.ws English Dictionary

a turkey voting for Christmas

a turkey voting for Christmas is the alternative form of like turkeys voting for Christmas.

Meaning of like turkeys voting for Christmas

Phrase

like turkeys voting for Christmas

  1. (UK, humorous, simile) Self-defeating; serving to bring about a situation detrimental to the performer of the action.
    • The next morning [14 December 1977] the Liberals held a two-and-a-half meeting at which Steel let them have their head. Only two MPs, Howells and Johnston, said they were willing to continue the Pact. The opponents were delighted. […] ‘Us voting for the Pact is like a turkey voting for Christmas’...[1977 December 14, Alistair Michie, Simon Hoggart, “The Wispy Beards Strike Back”, in The Pact: The Inside Story of the Lib-Lab Government, 1977–8, London: Quartet Books, published 1978, →ISBN, page...

Questions about a turkey voting for Christmas

What is a turkey voting for Christmas the alternative form of?
A turkey voting for Christmas is the alternative form of like turkeys voting for Christmas.

Words near a turkey voting for Christmas in the dictionary

  1. a ton
  2. a touch
  3. a treat
  4. a trifle
  5. a trouble shared is a trouble halved
  6. a turkey voting for Christmas
  7. a twig in a bundle cannot be broken
  8. a twig in a bundle is unbreakable
  9. a vinculo matrimonii
  10. a watched kettle never boils
  11. a watched pot never boils

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: a turkey voting for Christmas (page history and authors); like turkeys voting for Christmas (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “a turkey voting for Christmas.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/a_turkey_voting_for_christmas. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.