frog in the throat
Meaning
A feeling of hoarseness or a slight difficulty speaking, often due to a dry or irritated throat.
Origin
Picture a speaker, their voice rasping and ragged, struggling to push out words that sound more like a gravelly croak than human speech. This particular kind of vocal discomfort, often accompanied by a feeling of something thick and uncooperative in the throat, found its perfect, if slightly unsettling, metaphor in the amphibian world. The low, gurgling sound of a frog's croak, combined with the imaginative—and perhaps slightly nauseating—notion of a cold, slimy creature literally lodged in one's airway, cemented this phrase as the ideal description for a sudden bout of hoarseness.
Examples
- I had a terrible frog in my throat during my presentation, making it hard to project my voice clearly.
- She tried to clear the frog in her throat with a sip of water before singing the high note.