![]() The slightly strange phrase perfect stormrefers to a very bad situation caused by lots of bad things happening at the same time: In many ways, they weren’t the perfect partners for us, but any port in a storm, I guess. The phrase any port in a storm means that when you are in a very difficult situation, you will accept anything that seems helpful or attractive, even if it is not ideal: I suspect the government will weather the storm. The minister appears to have ridden out the storm. If you weather or ride (out) the storm, you survive a difficult period, without permanent damage, often to your reputation: In a couple of weeks, everyone will have forgotten what she said. US English has the equivalent phrase a tempest in a teapot: ![]() In UK English, we use the phrase a storm in a teacupto refer to a situation in which a lot of people express anger and shock over a matter that is not important. ![]() We’ve got 15 kids arriving for Joe’s party in ten minutes. Starting with those negative ‘storm’ idioms, we talk about the calm before the storm, meaning ‘a quiet, peaceful period before a time of great activity or trouble’: This post will focus on idioms related to storms, of which there are many! For example, a storm often features in idioms as something negative, referring to a period of trouble, and a cloud is something that spoils a situation. In many of these, the weather words are used metaphorically, in a way that makes the meaning quite obvious. It may not surprise you to hear that the weather features in a lot of English idioms. Sir Francis Canker Photography/Moment/Getty Images
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