- Home
- Idioms
- sideways
sideways
knock someone for a loop
1. Fig. to strike someone hard. You really knocked me for a loop. I hope that was an accident. DI was really knocked for a loop by the falling branch.
2. and throw someone for a loop Fig. to confuse or shock someone. (This is more severe and upsetting than throw someone a curve.) When Bill heard the news, it threw him for a loop. The manager knocked Bob for a loop by firing him on the spot.
knock somebody sideways
(British & Australian) to surprise, confuse or upset someone very much The news of her brother's death knocked her sideways.
knock/throw somebody for a loop
(American informal) if something that happens knocks you for a loop, it upsets or confuses you because you do not expect it He knocked me for a loop when he said he was quitting his job.
knock for a loop
Also, throw for a loop; knock down or over with a feather ; knock sideways. Overcome with surprise or astonishment, as in The news of his death knocked me for a loop, or Being fired without any warning threw me for a loop, or Jane was knocked sideways when she found out she won. The first two of these hyperbolic colloquial usages, dating from the first half of the 1900s, allude to the comic-strip image of a person pushed hard enough to roll over in the shape of a loop. The third hyperbolic term, often put as You could have knocked me down with a feather, intimating that something so light as a feather could knock one down, dates from the early 1800s; the fourth was first recorded in 1925.
look sideways at
Glance at suspiciously or amorously, as in
I'm sure the detective was looking sideways at me, and it made me very nervous, or
They were looking sideways at each other, and I don't think it was innocent. [Mid-1800s] Also see
look askance.