Meaning
To tell a blatant, deliberate falsehood with no attempt at subtlety and no apparent shame. It conveys more than ordinary dishonesty: a barefaced lie delivered to the listener's face, often about something easily disproved. The phrase is accusatory and informal. Informal and strongly accusatory; too blunt for formal characterization of testimony. Regional use: General English.
Origin
This is the modern form of one of the oldest English intensives of lying. To lie in one's teeth is documented from the early 1300s: Charles Earle Funk's 1948 survey of curious expressions, quoted on The Phrase Finder's discussion board, cites The Romance of Sir Guy of Warwick from that period, and the Oxford English Dictionary records lying in his teeth. A sibling formula about giving someone the lie in the throat was equally current in the Middle English and Elizabethan repertoire. Exactly when the wording shifted from in to through is not clearly documented in the standard references; the American Heritage Idioms Dictionary, via Dictionary.com, treats the in and through variants as one expression dating to about 1300, while its remark that the phrase presumably alludes to a liar's facial grimace is explicitly conjecture, not evidence.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- lie in one's teeth
- lie through his teeth
- lying through one's teeth
Usage Examples
- The witness was lying through his teeth, and everyone in the courtroom could see it.
- She claimed the delay was down to the weather, but I think she was lying through her teeth.
- You lied through your teeth when you promised the repairs were finished.