get blood out of a turnip
Seek nonexistent resources
To get blood out of a turnip is to extract something from a source that simply doesn't have it—typically money from someone who has none.
The phrase emphasizes impossibility: turnips contain no blood, so the effort is futile by nature.
Usually appears in the negative: You can't get blood out of a turnip.
Variants include *get blood from a stone*.
- impossibleIncapable of occurring
- mission impossibleUnachievable objective
- unachievableCannot be accomplished
- chasing rainbowsPursuing unrealistic goals
- wild goose chaseHopeless pursuit of nothing
tilting at windmills · infeasible · struggle · idiom · proverb · adage · unrealistic · unattainable · pipe dream · challenging · saying · futility · scraping the bottom of the barrel · waste of time · pulling teeth · burning the candle at both ends · lost cause · dead end
get blood out of a turniplike shooting fish in a barrel
Extremely easy task
like taking candy from a baby · easy as pie · child's play · a walk in the park · in the bag
get blood out of a turnipno sweat
Casual assurance of ease
effortless · straightforward · duck soup · cakewalk · smooth sailing
get blood out of a turnipstrike gold
Achieve sudden success
hit the jackpot · manna from heaven · drink from a firehose · embarrassment of riches · strike it rich
getting, blood, bloods, bloody, bloodied, bloodier, bloodiest, bloodily, outermost