take the wind out of someone's sails

present singular third person takes the wind out of someone's sails · participle present taking the wind out of someone's sails · past took the wind out of someone's sails · participle past taken the wind out of someone's sails · alternative knock the wind out of someone's sails

1. idiomaticTo discourage someone greatly; to cause someone to lose hope or the will to continue; to thwart or minimize someone's ambitions.

   "It took the wind out of our sails," he says. "I had no Plan B. I was a wreck."

   2011 April 14, “Quotes of the Day”, in Time

   4 more examples

   "I tell you Van Bahr Lamb is a fool." […] But Polly […] completely took the wind out of her sails, by coolly remarking,— "I like fools."

   c. 1860, Louisa May Alcott, Aunt Kipp

   Could he have some elderly idea of wanting a youngster for a wife? Occasionally an old chap did. Serve him right if some young chap took the wind out of his sails.

   1922, Frances Hodgson Burnett, chapter 31, in The Head of the House of Coombe

   [T]he Republicans […] have been repeatedly battered in the polls since German unification became a mainstream German concern and took the wind out of their sails.

   1990 May 27, Serge Schmemann, “German rightist quits after party suffers setback”, in New York Times, retrieved 17 Jul 2011

   A bunch of myths, a bunch of tales / To take the wind out of our sails / They even say that we must die / I don't believe it, that's a lie

   2023, “Let the Sun Come In”, in Relentless, performed by The Pretenders

   Synonyms: deflate, flummox, stultify, stymie, thwart