Word.ws English Dictionary

like a bowl in a china shop

like a bowl in a china shop prepositional phrase: eggcorn of like a bull in a china shop.

Prepositional phrase

like a bowl in a china shop

  1. Eggcorn of like a bull in a china shop.
  2. (nonce-word, rare, simile) Mundane.
    • On an intuition, Jennifer offered, “That’s why you and Mr Tate get along so well. He’s like an earthenware bowl in a china shop because he’s more real … more solid and down-to-earth.”2005, Ex Isle Forums: original fiction
    • Now, I sit as quiet as a bowl in a china shop.2007, Chuck Rybak, Liketown, page 6

Questions about like a bowl in a china shop

What does like a bowl in a china shop mean?
Like a bowl in a china shop means eggcorn of like a bull in a china shop.
What part of speech is like a bowl in a china shop?
Like a bowl in a china shop is a prepositional phrase.

Words near like a bowl in a china shop in the dictionary

  1. like a big dog
  2. like a bitch
  3. like a bitch on heat
  4. like a blue-arsed fly
  5. like a boss
  6. like a bowl in a china shop
  7. like a bug to a zapper
  8. like a bull at a gate
  9. like a bull in a china shop
  10. like a bulldog with a bone
  11. like a bump on a log

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like a bowl in a china shop (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: “like a bowl in a china shop.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/like_a_bowl_in_a_china_shop. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.