YOU COULD HAVE KNOCKED ME DOWN WITH A FEATHER

You might say “you could have knocked me down with a feather” to express extreme surprise.

 Examples:

 “After help in filling out the forms and a 20-minute telephone interview, Alan said he was ‘absolutely shocked’ to be told that he and his wife were entitled to so much extra money. ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather,’ he said.”

 “Raye, the most unassuming of men, had only decided to accept the honour on the last day allowed by Downing Street. ‘Honestly,’ he says, ‘you could have knocked me down with a feather.’”

 “I was in the waiting room at the doctors and I had ruled out Parkinson’s because I thought it was an old person thing. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I found out.”


 This expression apparently dates from the mid 19th century, although a similar idiom (‘you might have beat me down with a feather’) was used in Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela (published in 1740) [1].


 [1] “knock” in Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms, edited by Ayto, John. Oxford University Press, 2009.

 Photo credit: Chris (Creative Commons)

 Updated Sunday 08 March 2020