streak

To use profane language with great rapidity and intensity. My dad cursed a blue streak after he found out I'd put a dent in his car.

To use profane language with great rapidity and intensity. My dad swore a blue streak after he found out I'd put a dent in his car.

Something that moves very quickly and unceasingly. A: "Could you follow what Rob said?" B: "Not at all. The way he talks a blue streak, I couldn't keep up!"

Very quickly. Once I saw that swarm of bees, I took off like a streak in the opposite direction.

Rur. to curse a great deal. When she dropped the brick on her toe, she cussed a blue streak. Bill could cuss a blue streak by the time he was eight years old.

Fig. to be cowardly. Tex has a yellow streak down his back a mile wide. He's afraid to cross the street!

Rur. very fast. Once I get her tuned up, this old car will go like greased lightning. He's a fat kid, but he can run like greased lightning.

Fig. a series of losses [in sports, for instance]. (*Typically: be on ~; have ~; continue one's ~.) The team was on a losing streak that started nearly three years ago.

Fig. a series of lucky wins in gambling or games. (*Typically: be on ~; have ~.) Thanks to a lucky streak, I won enough in Las Vegas to pay for the trip.

Fig. a tendency for a person to do things that are mean. I think that Wally has a mean streak that no one ever saw before this incident.

to move across something very fast. A comet streaked across the night sky. Tom streaked across the street to get a cup of coffee.

a series of events that are only bad luck. After a long string of bad luck, we finally got a lucky break.

a series of fortunate events. After a series of failures, we started out on a streak of good luck.

Fig. to talk very much and very rapidly. Billy didn't talk until he was two, and then he started talking a blue streak. I can't understand anything Bob says. He talks a blue streak, and I can't follow his thinking.

a tendency toward cowardice. Tim's got a yellow streak down his back a mile wide. Get rid of that yellow streak. Show some courage.

if someone does something like greased lightning, they do it very quickly I mentioned work and he was out of the room like greased lightning.

to say a lot very fast She talked a blue streak and we just had to listen.

Also, like a blue streak; like the wind; like blazes. Very fast indeed, as in He climbed that ladder like greased lightning, or She kept on talking like a blue streak, or The children ran like the wind when they heard there'd be free ice cream. The likening of speed to lightning dates from the 1500s, and grease was added in the early 1800s to further accentuate the idea of haste. The first variant, blue streak, also dates from the early 1800s and alludes to something resembling lightning. The wind in the second variant has been a metaphor for swiftness since ancient Roman times. The blazes in the last variant, first recorded in 1925, alludes to fire or lightning.

Also, talk someone's ear or head or pants off ; talk a blue streak; talk until one is blue in the face; talk the bark off a tree or the hind leg off a donkey or horse . Talk so much as to exhaust the listener, as in Whenever I run into her she talks my arm off, or Louise was so excited that she talked a blue streak, or You can talk the bark off a tree but you still won't convince me. The first four expressions imply that one is so bored by a person's loquacity that one's arm (or ear or head or pants) fall off; they date from the first half of the 1900s (also see pants off). The term like a blue streak alone simply means "very quickly," but in this idiom, first recorded in 1914, it means "continuously." The obvious hyperboles implying talk that takes the bark off a tree, first recorded in 1831, or the hind leg off a horse, from 1808, are heard less often today. Also see under blue in the face.

A series of consecutive successes, a run of good luck, as in Our son-in-law has been on a winning streak with his investments. This expression comes from gambling. [Mid-1900s]