Idioms: Sleep With the Fishes

Sleep With the Fishes

A euphemism for dying or death.

Committing murder.

Origin

The expression is said to have been used for the first time in the film 'The Godfather' (1972) – 'Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes' (sleeps at the bottom of the ocean).

In the original text of Mario Puzo's novel 'The Godfather' (1969), the following is written: 'The fish means that Luca Brasi is sleeping on the bottom of the ocean,' he said. 'It's an old Sicilian message.'

A similar expression was also used in Herman Melville's novel 'Moby Dick' – 'when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep.' (Melville, Moby Dick, ch. 94).

More English idioms

English slang

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