Meaning
Used to say that it is impossible to obtain something - above all money, payment, sympathy, or information - from a person or source that does not have it or will never yield it. The stone stands for total unyieldingness, so the phrase frames the attempt as futile rather than merely difficult. Informal; usually resigned or exasperated in tone about a hopeless demand. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The image is of squeezing blood from something that has none to give. Etymonline records the underlying expression, to get blood from a stone, from the 1660s with the sense of attempting the impossible; the proverbial negative form became the usual way of voicing it, applied especially to extracting money from the destitute or feeling from the unfeeling. Collins documents the current meaning and shows the phrase family thriving in British English, including a brick substituted for the stone. American English often swaps in a turnip, though etymonline's entry records only the stone form, so the turnip variant is treated here as living usage rather than a documented early form.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- blood from a turnip
- blood out of a brick
- get blood out of a stone
- you can't get blood from a stone
Usage Examples
- Getting a straight answer from that department is like getting blood out of a stone.
- You can't get blood out of a stone, said the clerk, so stop demanding rent the tenants simply do not have.
- Getting an apology out of him was like getting blood out of a stone; it took three weeks and a mediator.