Meaning
A temporary hoarseness or croaky, phlegmy quality in the voice that makes clear speech difficult. Someone with a frog in their throat is not seriously ill; the problem usually eases after coughing, throat-clearing, or a drink of water, and the phrase is light and informal. Informal and light-hearted; used for minor, passing hoarseness rather than real illness. The usual wording is have a frog in one's throat, and beware the fake medieval-cure origin story still circulating online. Regional use: General English (originally American).
Origin
Widely repeated claims that the phrase comes from medieval physicians using frog secretions, or live frogs held in the mouth, to treat throat complaints are folk etymology; the Phrase Finder states plainly that no evidence supports the story. A genuine seventeenth-century belief held that holding a live frog in a child's mouth until it died would cure thrush, but nobody at that time used the phrase, which is not recorded until the nineteenth century. The expression is American, coined simply because a hoarse voice sounds croaky: the earliest known print use is Harvey Newcomb's 1847 book for boys, How to be a Man, and Discover Wildlife dates the phrase to the 1840s in the USA. In November 1894 the Stevens Point Journal advertised Taylor Bros' ten-cent Frog in the Throat lozenges, and the importers' tongue-in-cheek campaign - stuffed frogs in Merrie England tableaux, plus an invented tale that the phrase was a forgotten old English expression - carried it into Britain from December 1894.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a frog in my throat
- a frog in the throat
- have a frog in one's throat
Usage Examples
- Halfway through the toast, a frog in his throat made his voice croak, so he paused and sipped some water.
- She apologized for the frog in her throat, blaming the cold morning air on her walk into the office.
- A stubborn frog in my throat ruined the voiceover take, and the producer asked me to try again after lunch.