Hello and welcome back to Daily English! Today’s idiom is “get under someone’s skin.”
Let’s say it together — get under someone’s skin. Can you guess what it means from these clues?
Your coworker keeps clicking their pen in every meeting, and even though it’s small, it really gets under your skin. You try to stay calm… but it bothers you more and more.
Or… maybe you keep thinking about someone. You didn’t expect to care so much, but somehow, they’ve gotten under your skin — in a way you can’t shake off.
So what does “get under someone’s skin” mean? It means to affect someone deeply, either by irritating them or by emotionally touching them — sometimes even both.
Something or someone that gets under your skin stays in your thoughts and emotions — in a way that’s hard to ignore.
Examples: “My little brother always sings loudly when I’m trying to study. It really gets under my skin! There’s this girl in my class — at first I didn’t even notice her. But over time, she really got under my skin. Now I think about her all the time.”
That unfair comment about my accent got under my skin. I kept replaying it in my head for days.
Your Turn! Can you think of someone who has gotten under your skin — either by annoying you or touching your heart more than you expected? What was it about them that stuck with you?