body English

Idioms & Phrases

body English

Movements of the body that express a person's feelings, as in His body English tells us just how tired he is. This expression originated about 1900 in such sports as bowling and ice hockey, where a player tries to influence the path of a ball or puck by moving his body in a particular direction. (It was based on the earlier use of English to mean "spin imparted to a ball.")

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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