albatross round one's neck
Inescapable heavy burden
A persistent burden or source of guilt that one cannot escape, from Coleridge's poem in which a sailor must wear the dead bird he killed.
The phrase usually appears as an albatross around one's neck: That failed investment has been an albatross around my neck for years.
Sometimes shortened to just an albatross: The scandal became an albatross for the campaign.
- cross to bearPersistent personal burden
- ColeridgeEnglish Romantic verse-maker
- millstoneGrain-crushing circular stone
- weight of the worldImmense pressure from responsibility
- remorseGuilt for wrongdoing
emotional baggage · guilty conscience · ball and chain · guilt complex · heavy heart · shame · redemption arc · self-reproach · skeleton in the closet · dark secret · moral lesson · poetic justice · tragic flaw · dead weight · burden · penance · curse · original sin
albatross round one's neckbadge of honor
Source of earned pride
crowning glory · point of pride · medal · laurel · accolade
albatross round one's neckwings
Limbs for flight
clean break · fresh start · liberation · unburdening · freedom
albatross, round, one, neck, albatrosses, rounder, roundest, roundly, rounds