Word.ws English Dictionary

knock the wind out of someone's sails

knock the wind out of someone's sails is the alternative form of take the wind out of someone's sails.

Meaning of take the wind out of someone's sails

Verb

take the wind out of someone's sails (third-person singular simple present takes the wind out of someone's sails, present participle taking the wind out of someone's sails, simple past took the wind out of someone's sails, past participle taken the wind out of someone's sails)

  1. (idiomatic) To discourage someone greatly; to cause someone to lose hope or the will to continue; to thwart or minimize someone's ambitions.
    • "I tell you Van Bahr Lamb is a fool." […]
      But Polly […] completely took the wind out of her sails, by coolly remarking,— "I like fools."c. 1860, Louisa May Alcott, Aunt Kipp

Forms of knock the wind out of someone's sails

third-person singular presentknocks the wind out of someone's sails
present participleknocking the wind out of someone's sails
past participleknocked the wind out of someone's sails
pastknocked the wind out of someone's sails

Questions about knock the wind out of someone's sails

What is knock the wind out of someone's sails the alternative form of?
Knock the wind out of someone's sails is the alternative form of take the wind out of someone's sails.

Words near knock the wind out of someone's sails in the dictionary

  1. knock the daylight out of
  2. knock the daylights out of
  3. knock the living daylights out of
  4. knock the persimmon
  5. knock the stuffing out of
  6. knock the wind out of someone's sails
  7. knock together
  8. knock under
  9. knock up
  10. knock wood
  11. knock-'em-downs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knock the wind out of someone's sails (page history and authors); take the wind out of someone's sails (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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