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Sayings About Animals #4

The missing words in these popular cliches are the names of animals. See if you can guess them.
Some answers are plural
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: July 28, 2015
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First submittedJuly 28, 2015
Times taken37,323
Average score70.0%
Rating4.08
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Cliche
Pull a rabbit out of a hat
As the crow flies
Put the cart before the horse
There's plenty of fish in the sea
Like a moth to a flame
Open a can of worms
A frog in one's throat
See you later, alligator
Slippery as an eel
Packed in like sardines
Cliche
Smarter than the average bear
Make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
Grinning like a Cheshire cat
A stool pigeon
Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas
Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite.
Knee high to a grasshopper
Make a mountain out of a molehill
Naked as a jaybird
A lone wolf
+1
Level 44
Dec 10, 2015
Very cool quiz.
+7
Level 71
Dec 13, 2015
Good quiz, haven't heard the 'Naked as a Jaybird' before, tried baby but that didn't work.
+18
Level 35
Feb 22, 2016
I kept trying for naked as a mole rat...but I've never heard of jaybird...
+4
Level 55
Apr 13, 2016
I've heard them both, but I could only think of mole rat.
+1
Level 66
Oct 1, 2019
that's what I tried, and then sphynx..
+1
Level 34
Nov 22, 2020
Same
+1
Level 74
Feb 18, 2021
Only time I've ever heard naked as a jaybird is from this ridiculous song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtzoUu7w-YM

+1
Level 34
Sep 27, 2023
That is a great song
+1
Level 84
Mar 11, 2016
Surprised many don't know 'naked as a jaybird.' It was pretty common where I gre up. The silk purse one was totally new to me...
+3
Level 75
Apr 13, 2016
"Naked as a jaybird" is common in my area, too. "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" is a centuries-old proverb. Wiktionary says it was first used by Stephen Gasson in a book in 1579. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/make_a_silk_purse_of_a_sow%27s_ear Today a similar one I hear more often is, "Like putting lipstick on a pig."
+1
Level 61
Feb 27, 2017
Same, I always heard family members saying it while I was growing up!
+2
Level 82
Aug 11, 2019
Apparently it's a US idiom.
+1
Level 75
May 23, 2016
Fun, but really easy. Need way less time.
+2
Level 68
Nov 12, 2016
Fun. The only one I had never heard of before was the jaybird.
+5
Level 84
Mar 1, 2017
Maybe it's on a subsequent quiz, but I half expected to see "as happy as a clam", which is a phrase I never understood. What is so inherently gleeful about clams that they are somehow the touchstone for happiness? And then a few years ago, I saw an interview with an older man who was born in the early 20th Century. In relating an experience of his, he said that he was "as happy as a clam at high tide." Then it finally made sense. We've just lazily truncated the complete phrase.
+1
Level 66
Oct 1, 2019
which is the case for soo many sayings/proverb and idioms
+1
Level 69
Feb 18, 2021
You've heard the expression "What's good for the goose is good for the gander?" I read somewhere it was originally what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, which seems very different.
+1
Level 70
Sep 24, 2023
'Sauce' makes more sense TBH. The use of 'good' is more of a definition, making the saying less of an idiom.
+1
Level 58
Aug 26, 2018
grrr....kept trying cow instead of sow lol
+1
Level 59
Nov 28, 2019
It might help to write

smarter than the Avv ErAge bear

or something. Because both times (not sure why it said I hadn't done it when I had) this quiz I didn't get bear but I can hear Yogi in my head saying it when the answer comes up. Grr I just don't seem to remember it before the end of the quiz.

Ah well.

+2
Level 69
Feb 18, 2021
Could you accept "Naked as a Jay" please?
+4
Level 65
Feb 18, 2021
Wow, some of these sayings are the same in the Netherlands. It shows how languages are linked to one eachother. Thats kinda cool
+2
Level 61
Feb 18, 2021
I got grasshopper, but I've also heard that one as "knee high to a junebug." Am I the only one?
+2
Level 64
Apr 18, 2022
Knee high to a duck.
+4
Level 60
Feb 18, 2021
Are jaybirds naked? And is it the bird that I would just call a Jay? Because they have brightly coloured feathers. Never heard that one before.
+3
Level 77
Feb 18, 2021
Most animals are naked. What's special about Jaybirds?
+6
Level 83
Nov 3, 2021
“In 1920s and 30s America, J-bird was short for jailbird and when they were brought in from the bus, they went to the showers were given their kit and made to walk from one end of the prison to the other naked. Hence naked as a j-bird - or jaybird.” (LBC)
+1
Level 71
Feb 18, 2021
There are a lot of these I haven't heard of. "A frog in one's throat," "Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas," "A stool pigeon," "Make a silk purse out of a sow's ear"...
+2
Level 79
Feb 18, 2021
Noah Webster has a lot to answer for. Thankfully where I live we aren't too afflicted by his "inventions".
+5
Level 59
Feb 18, 2021
Naked as a mole rat? That's what I grew up with. Never heard "naked as a jaybird." Great quiz, though!
+1
Level 56
Feb 19, 2021
I've heard "Knee high to a pig's eye" not grasshopper
+3
Level 76
Feb 19, 2021
I think molerat should be added as an alternative answer for jaybird. "Naked as a jaybird" is only a common saying in the American South, and even living in it, I've heard both used. I'm sure "naked as a molerat" is much more common globally, and maybe even more common in just the US
+2
Level 67
Sep 24, 2023
I don't live in the American South. In fact nearly 10,000 miles away but I knew jaybird. Never heard of molerat though.

Or a junebug for that matter

+1
Level 66
Aug 30, 2021
You could add something like this: "To address the elephant in the room"
+2
Level 58
Jan 26, 2022
I only knew the silk purse one thanks to that one song in Mulan. :V

"This is what you give me to work with? Well honey, I've seen worse!"

+1
Level 43
Feb 14, 2022
awe...so many of these reminded me of my dad who has been gone now for almost 20 years.
+1
Level 72
Oct 21, 2022
I only ever heard of knee high to a junebug. Grasshopper does make more sense though, tbh.
+1
Level 66
Dec 30, 2022
What's with the bear saying? Never heard this, but bears aren't particularly smart looking fellas.

The jaybird one is a bit bonkers because it's just called a jay, it's not really naked, and the saying is usually "as a baby", but them's the brakes...

+1
Level 63
Mar 30, 2023
It's from Yogi Bear, it was his catchphrase but it got popular enough to become a saying in its own right.
+1
Level 75
Sep 28, 2023
*breaks
+1
Level 67
Sep 26, 2023
Never heard the molehill one but got it when guessing for something else