scrape someone off the ceiling

present singular third person scrapes someone off the ceiling · participle present scraping someone off the ceiling · participle past scraped someone off the ceiling · past scraped someone off the ceiling

1. idiomaticUsed to describe the response to someone who is either experiencing great pain, who is very frightened, or is very elated.

   No, you'd have to scrape me off the ceiling.

   2007, James Kirkwood, P.S. Your Cat Is Dead

   5 more examples

   He would come over to my office at least once a week and explode because somebody had been after him. And I would scrape him off the ceiling and send him back until the next week.

   1979, A History of Cancer Control in the United States, 1946-1971

   Occasionally, however, they will get a real thriller, and when the horn goes off at a particularly suspenseful point, they say you can scrape the pilots off the ceiling.

   1983, Michael Skinner, USAFE, a primer of modern air combat in Europe, page 8

   Do you think you could scrape yourself off the ceiling long enough for us to get some sleep?

   1992, Jasmine Cresswell, Nowhere to Hide, page 200

   It made my inner self so excited I had to think of baseball or they'd be scraping me off the ceiling.

   2001, G.C. Rosenquist, The Opening And Closing Of The Moon, page 9

   I spoke with Kip the other day, and you could scrape him off the ceiling with the obvious pride and excitement he shares with Kinsley.

   2007, Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin

   Synonyms: pull someone off the ceiling, peel someone off the ceiling