stick in someone's throat

present singular third person sticks in someone's throat · participle present sticking in someone's throat · participle past stuck in someone's throat · past stuck in someone's throat

1. alternativeAlternative form of stick in someone's craw.

   'Tis this confounded London fog that sticks in my throat.

   1850, Joseph Stirling Coyne, My Wife's Daughter. A comedy, in two acts, page 13

   4 more examples

   What sticks in the throat is the manner in which the appointment has been presented.

   1961 May, “Editorial: Mr. M. presents Dr. B. - for a limited season only”, in Trains Illustrated, page 258

   On February 25 he told a CDU British zonal meeting that the question of finance administration was “stupid” and “beginning to stick in my throat."

   2012, Arnold J. Heidenheimer, Adenauer and the CDU

   When Levin changed his first hundred-rouble note to pay for liveries for the footman and the doorman, he could not help thinking that these liveries, which were of no use to anyone but vitally necessary, to judge from the Princess's and Kitty's surprise at the mere suggestion that it would be possible to dispense with them—these liveries would cost as much as two summer labourers, that is, about three hundred days' work from Easter to Michaelmas, and hard grind every day from early morning to late in the evening, so that hundred-rouble note definitely did stick in the throat.

   2014, Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, page 679

   This mission is rotten with absurdities that stick in her throat, but they have to start somewhere.

   2015, Richard Beard, Acts of the Assassins, page 63

2. To be too difficult to speak.

   I look at him; the words I want to say stick in my throat.

   2015, Linda Mornell, Forever Changed

   4 more examples

   In truth, it seems that the words 'I do not know' stick in every physician's throat.

   2012, Salvatore Mangione, Physical Diagnosis Secrets

   to that hour of complete self-recognition before God when excuse and argument stick in the throat, then the intrinsically fallen and “base” property he has used with love will come forward and testify for him.

   2012, Romano Guardini, The Lord

   For once, my voice doesn't stick in my throat. “I am studying hard. To be a dancer. I'm not planning to become an engineer. Or a doctor.”

   2014, Padma Venkatraman, A Time to Dance, page 8

   His mother wants to add to the story, but her words stick in her throat.

   2015, Johnnie Moore, Defying ISIS, page 29

3. To cause an aching sensation in the throat as if something is stuck there.

   His breath stuck in his throat.

   2008, Deeanne Gist, Deep in the Heart of Trouble, page 307

   2 more examples

   “It may not be like that,” he said, as soon as his heart was no longer rising to stick in his throat.

   2013, Charles Sheffield, Summertide

   And as I kept staring down at the car while the traffic warden moved slowly away, I felt my next breath stick in my throat.

   2015, The Slaughter Man, page 263

4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see stick, throat.

   Realizing he that he had just revealed his guilt, he swiftly spun around to flee, only to have a sword stuck in his throat.

   2012, Gary T. Brideau, River of Fire, page 30

   1 more example

   I took so many of them, felt them stick in my throat and I swallowed and swallowed to get them down, and I sat with that bottle and chanted, more, more, more, and then the bottle was nearly empty and I thought suddenly, Wait, I don't want to die

   2002, Catherine Coulter, Hemlock Bay