like water off a duck's back
like water off a duck's back prepositional phrase: without immediate or lasting effects.
Prepositional phrase
- Without immediate or lasting effects.
- "She combs me down with her tongue sometimes though, but that just slips off me like water off a duck's back."1919, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 18, in Rainbow Valley
- Scandal after scandal would break, but it would be like water off a duck's back; no heads rolled, and no one seemed particularly perturbed.2009 January 2, Jan Espeut, “The honeymoon is over”, in Jamaica Gleaner, retrieved 20 Jan 2009
like water off a duck's back meaning in Malay and Vietnamese
like water off a duck's back in Malay
- without effects; in a manner having no effect
- bagai mencurah air ke daun keladi
like water off a duck's back in Vietnamese
- without effects; in a manner having no effect
- như nước đổ đầu vịt, như nước đổ lá khoai, như nước đổ lá môn
Questions about like water off a duck's back
- What does like water off a duck's back mean?
- Like water off a duck's back means without immediate or lasting effects.
- What is like water off a duck's back in Malay?
- Like water off a duck's back in Malay is bagai mencurah air ke daun keladi. See Like water off a duck's back meaning in Malay.
- What part of speech is like water off a duck's back?
- Like water off a duck's back is a prepositional phrase.
Words near like water off a duck's back in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: like water off a duck's back (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-like water off a duck's back.ogg.
Cite this entry: “like water off a duck's back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/like_water_off_a_duck%27s_back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.