Do you know what the idiom ‘over the moon’ means?
It means to be very happy or thrilled about something. It’s often used when someone gets some good news or succeeds at something.
Here are some examples:
I finally got the job I wanted! I’m over the moon!
Rebecca was over the moon when she found out she passed the exam.
The children were over the moon when they got a new pet puppy.
This idiom comes from the children’s nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle where the cow jumped over the moon. Since then, ‘over the moon’ has come to mean very happy. ‘The moon’ is used to show how high the happiness is.
There are also other phrases and idioms where height is connected with happiness, for example, ‘on cloud nine’ (very happy) and ‘down in the downs’ (very unhappy).
‘Over the moon’ is a fixed expression so the words and their order do not change. Also, it’s almost always used with different tenses of the verb TO BE.
Here are some incorrect and correct examples:
✖ Peter got over the moon about the news.
✖ They were over the moons when they won the game.
✅ Betty was over the moon when she was given flowers at work.
✅ You must be over the moon about getting that award.
So, what is something you have been over the moon about?
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