a bull in a china shop
Someone who is aggressively reckless and clumsy in a situation that requires delicacy and care. My son can be a bit of a bull in a china shop, so I'm worried about taking him to the museum. Surrounding him with valuables does not seem like a wise idea! This is a complex problem, and if you attack it like a bull in a china shop, you will alienate a lot of people. You can't just go into every meeting like a bull in a china shop—remember, tact will get you far in this business.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
bull in a china shop (like a)
Clumsy, awkward. There are numerous theories concerning the origin of this expression, which probably was not an actual break-in by a bull. One of Aesop’s fables concerns an ass in a potter’s shop, and Charles Funk long ago suggested that a nineteenth-century British cartoonist used this idea in caricaturing John Bull (symbol for England) and his awkward dealings with the China trade. The earliest use of the precise expression found so far is in Frederick Marryat’s novel Jacob Faithful (1834).
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer