🗓️ Idiom: Take the Mickey (verb)
💬 Meaning
- To tease or make fun of someone, usually in a playful or friendly way.
- In the workplace, it can mean joking with colleagues without being rude or unkind.
🧠 Example Sentences
- Everyone in the office takes the mickey out of Paul for always being late, but he doesn’t mind.
- She was just taking the mickey when she said your desk looks like a jungle.
- It’s fine to take the mickey at work, as long as people know it’s only a joke.
🏛️ Origin
The phrase “take the mickey” is a shortened form of “take the mickey Bliss,” which was rhyming slang for “take the piss” — meaning to mock or tease. Over time, “take the mickey” became the polite and widely accepted version used in both British and workplace English.
📝 Practice Exercises
1. Fill in the blank:
He was only ________ when he said your report was longer than a novel.
Answer
taking the mickey
2. Multiple choice:
If someone “takes the mickey,” they:
a) Make fun of someone in a light-hearted way
b) Get angry at someone
c) Refuse to joke around
Answer
a) Make fun of someone in a light-hearted way
3. Change the sentence using “take the mickey”:
“They joked about his new haircut during lunch.”
Answer
They took the mickey out of his new haircut during lunch.
ℹ️ Other Useful Pages
📚 Learning Resources
👉 Idioms for Humour in the Workplace
👉 Business English Idioms List
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Rob is a CELTA qualified English teacher with 15 years of international experience. He has a BSc and PGDip from Loughborough and St Andrews universities in the UK. He has taught in Thailand and Saudi Arabia and now works with professionals worldwide.
