"Nine Lives" Idiom Meaning, Origin & History | Superduper English Idioms
Channel: Superduper English Idioms
Date: 05/06/2021

0:00 - How to Say, “Nine lives.”
0:22 - Examples of “Nine lives.”
1:16 - Meaning of “Nine lives.”
1:33 - Origin of “Nine lives.”
2:51 - More Examples of “Nine lives.”
3:40 - Conclusion

“Nine lives.”

If someone refers to something or someone as having “nine lives”, it means that that thing or person has escaped death, evaded extermination, avoided failure, made a comeback.

“My grandpa survived World War II, a heart attack, lung cancer and now COVID - he definitely has nine lives,” you might be chatting with your neighbour.

Maybe you’re visiting a friend’s shop, “I thought I was going to have to shut down just a few months ago, but business is booming now. It’s like this store has nine lives!”

“I think we should invest in this company, it has nine lives. Just when the stock price swoons, they come up with a revolutionary business idea,” you might be discussing with your partner.

As you can see, having “nine lives” means to have enough luck or fortune to survive what would’ve been a disaster, catastrophe, tragedy for others.

The idiom, “nine lives”, originates with the superstition that cats have multiple lives, amongst the many superstitions having to do with cats.

In English, cats are said to have nine lives; but in Spanish they have seven and in Arabic, they have six.

Many cultures around the world have their own idioms that describe someone who seems to escape death, is extremely lucky, has nine, seven or six lives.

In Thailand, they would say that you “have hard bones”.

In Taiwan, you would “escape from amongst the dead.”

You might “save your bacon” or “return from the dead” in Turkey.

“It seems that you have nine lives, I thought you were a goner after that motorcycle accident,” you might be visiting a friend who was involved in a serious collision.

Perhaps you want to discourage your kid from doing extreme sports, “You’ve had enough fun, I think you’ve used up eight of your nine lives.”

“I think I just used up one of my nine lives,” you might say jokingly after riding a particularly scary rollercoaster.

So, the next time you want to say that someone or something turned their luck around, came back when the odds were stacked against them, “made it out of the woods”, defied death against all odds, just say that they have “nine lives”. 

#superduperenglishidioms #englishidioms #idioms #proverbs

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat#Superstitions_and_rituals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thai_language_idioms

http://www.standardmandarin.com/idioms/125

https://tureng.com/en/turkish-english/escape%20death