Idioms

german

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(some score) from the East German judge

An imaginary and exaggeratedly low score for some event, action, statement, or attempt deemed to be a failure or inadequate in some way. It is a reference to judges from the former country of East Germany, who were often seen as giving unfairly low scores to competitors from other countries during international sporting events. I'd say that pitiful retort would only get you 2 out of 10 from the East German judges, my friend. Based on that eyeroll, I guess my dad joke didn't earn a very high score from the East German judge. Wow, his form on that jump was terrible! That would get him about 3 from the East German judge, wouldn't you say?
See also: east, german, judge

German goiter

old-fashioned A large distended belly, as might result from heavy consumption of beer; a beer belly. Primarily heard in US. I'd like to run a marathon some day, but first I need to do something about this German goiter of mine. The sheriff sported a German goiter so big that his uniform could barely contain it. Todd's not the muscle-bound athlete you remember from college. He's got quite a German goiter these days, for starters.
See also: german, goiter

German virgin

In poker, a starting hand of two nines. So called due to "nine, nine" sounding like the German nein, nein, meaning "no, no." Having been dealt a German virgin right off the bat, I was hoping for a third nine to be laid on the table. When a German virgin is the best thing in your hand, well, you know you won't get very far with one pair. I wish I had folded rather than try to get a third nine to go with my German virgin.
See also: german, virgin

German wheel

A prop, often featured in circus performances, that looks like a life-size hamster wheel. A performer is positioned in the middle and rotates it. Come to the show, it'll be fun—there will be acrobats, trapeze artists, and people in German wheels! Wow, how much strength and flexibility does one need to operate a German wheel? A: "Trapeze artists are cool and all, but I want to try a German wheel someday, Mommy!" B: "Let's just focus on watching the circus for now, OK, honey?"
See also: german, wheel

Milwaukee goiter

old-fashioned slang A particularly large, distended belly, especially as a result of drinking excessive amounts of alcohol; a beer belly. The sheriff of the small town stood a mere five-foot-five, with a Milwaukee goiter so big that it looked as though he hadn't put a bottle down in five years. I always kept in pretty good shape, but after I had kids, I noticed myself starting to get a bit of a Milwaukee goiter.
See also: goiter
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

Milwaukee goiter

and German goiter (mɪlˈwɔki ˈgoɪdɚ and ˈdʒɚmən ˈgoɪdɚ)
n. a beer belly. (Refers to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a major beer-brewing city, and to Germany.) By the time he was twenty-six, he was balding and had a Milwaukee goiter that would tip him over if he turned too fast. If you want to get rid of that German goiter, stop drinking beer!
See also: goiter

German goiter

verb
See also: german, goiter
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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References in classic literature
She was German and that was enough; but he had other and more important work before him.
The aide left the room and the others fell into a general conversation from which it became apparent to Tarzan that the German East African forces greatly outnumbered the British and that the latter were suffering heavily.
[1] Late in July, 1916, an item in the shipping news mentioned a Swedish sailing vessel, Balmen, Rio de Janiero to Barcelona, sunk by a German raider sometime in June.
Then he explained that the U-33 would cruise in these waters for a time, sinking neutral and enemy shipping indiscriminately, and looking for one of the German raiders that was supposed to be in these parts.
Nice, quiet, law-abiding Germans they've been so far....
The German attack therefore found half the American strength at Manila, and what was called the Second Fleet strung out across the Pacific in wireless contact between the Asiatic station and San Francisco.
Von Schoenvorts had managed to drag the Englishman around so that his back was toward Schwartz and the other advancing Germans. Schwartz was almost upon Bradley with gun clubbed and ready to smash down upon the Englishman's skull.
The rest of the English and Germans were engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter.
I am told that in a German concert or opera, they hardly ever encore a song; that though they may be dying to hear it again, their good breeding usually preserves them against requiring the repetition.
He glowered round upon us with a look of such concentrated ferocity that, but for our being forewarned as to the German method of comic singing, we should have been nervous; and he threw such a wailing note of agony into the weird music that, if we had not known it was a funny song, we might have wept.
He swore at us in German (which I should judge to be a singularly effective language for that purpose), and he danced, and shook his fists, and called us all the English he knew.
And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to express the struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of having overcome "French one-sidedness" and of representing, not true requirements, but the requirements of truth;not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general, who belongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm of philosophical fantasy.
This German Socialism, which took its schoolboy task so seriously and solemnly, and extolled its poor stock-in-trade in such mountebank fashion, meanwhile gradually lost its pedantic innocence.
"Sell me the missis," said another soldier, addressing the German, who, angry and frightened, strode energetically along with downcast eyes.
The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand.
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