On this page16 sections
- Quick picker
- Envy and jealousy
- Inexperience
- Go-ahead and permission
- Gardens, nature and the environment
- The grass is always greener
- Feeling sick
- Money and business
- Other green expressions
- Greenfield and brownfield
- When "green" can be read two ways
- Using green idioms well
- Idioms that are often confused
- How formal are they?
- Practice
- Quick answers
The best-known idioms with green are green with envy (very jealous), the green-eyed monster (jealousy), a green light (permission to go ahead), a green thumb or, in British English, green fingers (a talent for gardening), green around the gills (looking sick) and the grass is always greener on the other side (other people’s situations always look better). Green in idioms usually means one of five things: envy, inexperience, go-ahead, nature, or money.
Each idiom below has its meaning, an example sentence and, where it is known, where it came from. After the lists you will find idioms that are often confused, how formal each one is, and a short practice set with answers. For green in comparisons, see similes for green; for green as an image in poems and stories, see metaphors for green.
Quick picker
| You want to say… | Idiom |
|---|---|
| someone is jealous | green with envy; the green-eyed monster |
| someone is new and inexperienced | green; a greenhorn; not as green as you look |
| a plan has been approved | get / give the green light |
| someone is good with plants | a green thumb (US); green fingers (UK) |
| someone looks ill | green around the gills |
| other lives always seem better | the grass is always greener (on the other side) |
| something is becoming eco-friendly | go green |
| a company pretends to be eco-friendly | greenwashing |
| the economy is starting to recover | green shoots |
| money (US) | greenbacks; the long green (dated slang) |
Envy and jealousy
| Idiom | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| green with envy | very envious | “My friends were green with envy when I said I was spending a month in Japan.” |
| the green-eyed monster | jealousy, pictured as a creature | “The green-eyed monster came out when his ex turned up with someone new.” |
| green-eyed (adjective) | jealous | “a green-eyed glance at the winner’s trophy” |
Where it comes from: the green-eyed monster is from Shakespeare’s Othello (about 1604), where Iago warns Othello of jealousy, “the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on”. Shakespeare also wrote of “green-eyed jealousy” in The Merchant of Venice. One common explanation for the colour is the old medical idea of the four humours, in which bile, a yellow-green fluid, was linked to bad temper and sickly feelings; this is a likely background rather than a proven origin.
Envy and jealousy are not quite the same: envy is wanting what someone else has; jealousy is fear of losing what you have, usually to a rival. In everyday speech “green with envy” covers both. More on this in metaphors for jealousy.
Inexperience
| Idiom | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| green | new to something and inexperienced | “She was still green when she took over the night shift.” |
| a greenhorn | a beginner, someone easy to fool | “The old hands sent the greenhorn to fetch a left-handed spanner.” |
| green as grass | completely inexperienced or naive | “He was green as grass on his first day at the paper.” |
| not as green as you’re cabbage-looking | not as naive as you look (British and Irish, humorous) | “Don’t try that on Gran; she’s not as green as she’s cabbage-looking.” |
Where it comes from: green has meant “young, unripe” since Old English, from fruit and wood that are not yet mature. Greenhorn first referred to a young animal, such as an ox, whose horns had only just grown, and was being used for an inexperienced person by the 1600s.
Green in this sense is mildly teasing, not insulting. For a neutral word, use new, inexperienced or junior. More idioms about being new: idioms for new.
Go-ahead and permission
| Idiom | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| give / get the green light | give or receive permission to start | “The council gave the green light to the new cycle lanes.” |
| green-light (verb) | to approve, especially a film or project | “The studio green-lit a second season.” |
The idiom comes from traffic signals and railway signals, where green means go. Its opposite is a red light (a refusal), and an uncertain answer is sometimes called an amber light in British English or a yellow light in American English.
Gardens, nature and the environment
| Idiom | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| a green thumb (US) / green fingers (UK) | a talent for growing plants | “My neighbour has green fingers; even her cuttings flower.” |
| green-fingered (UK adjective) | good at gardening | “a green-fingered volunteer who runs the school garden” |
| go green | start living or working in a more eco-friendly way | “The café went green: no plastic cups and a compost bin out back.” |
| greenwashing | making a product or company look more eco-friendly than it is | “Calling a plastic bottle ‘eco’ because the cap is recycled is greenwashing.” |
| green belt (UK) | protected countryside around a city where building is limited | “Plans to build on the green belt drew hundreds of objections.” |
| green space | parks and grass in a town | “The estate has almost no green space for children.” |
| evergreen | always popular or relevant (from trees that keep their leaves) | “Wedding songs are evergreen; the same ones come back every year.” |
More nature idioms: idioms for nature and idioms for trees.
The grass is always greener
Meaning: other people’s lives, jobs or places always seem better than your own, often wrongly. The full form is “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”, and people often say just “the grass is always greener”.
- “He left a good job for a start-up and now misses his old team. The grass is always greener.”
- “Before you move, make sure it’s not just a case of the grass being greener.”
A popular reply, often credited to various speakers, is “The grass is greener where you water it”: things improve where you put effort.
Feeling sick
| Idiom | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| green around the gills (UK also: green about the gills) | looking pale and sick, as if about to vomit | “After the ferry crossing, half the class looked green around the gills.” |
| turn green | start to look sick | “He turned green when the nurse brought out the needle.” |
This idiom is only about looking sick. It does not mean inexperienced, even though “green” alone can.
Money and business
| Idiom | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| greenbacks | US dollars (from the green ink on the backs of notes first issued in the US Civil War) | “He paid in greenbacks.” |
| the long green / the green | money (dated US slang) | “It takes a lot of green to run a campaign.” |
| green shoots | early signs of recovery, especially in the economy | “Economists saw green shoots in the spring sales figures.” |
| in the green | making a profit, or in a safe state (green on charts and dashboards) | “After a bad quarter, the shop is back in the green.” |
| a green card | US permanent residence permit (literal, but often used figuratively for any hard-won right to stay) | “She finally got her green card after six years.” |
Green shoots became well known in Britain after Chancellor Norman Lamont spoke of “the green shoots of economic spring” in 1991, at a time when the recession was not over, so the phrase is often used a little ironically. More money idioms on other ways to say money.
Other green expressions
- the green room – the room where performers or guests wait before going on stage or on air. “The panel chatted in the green room before the show.”
- a village green – a shared patch of grass in the centre of an English village (literal, but often used to call up a picture of village life).
- green-ink letters – British journalists’ term for rambling letters from eccentric readers, which were said often to be written in green ink.
- green-eyed and green-tinged – used loosely in writing for envy: “a green-tinged smile”.
Greenfield and brownfield
These started as planning terms and moved into business and technology:
- a greenfield site – land that has never been built on. “The supermarket wants a greenfield site outside town.”
- a brownfield site – land that was built on before, often old industrial land. “Campaigners want new homes on brownfield sites, not farmland.”
- a greenfield project (business, software) – one started from nothing, with no old systems to work around. “It was a greenfield project, so we could pick any tools we liked.”
When “green” can be read two ways
Because green has several idiomatic meanings, a short phrase can be ambiguous. “A green manager” could mean a new, inexperienced manager or a manager in charge of environmental policy. “Green investors” could be beginners or people who invest in clean energy. When the context does not settle it, choose a plainer word: a new manager, a sustainability manager, first-time investors, climate-focused investors.
The same goes for headlines and slogans. “Going green” on a hospital poster about seasickness tablets would raise a smile, so writers sometimes play on this on purpose: a ferry company joking about passengers “going green” is using the sickness idiom and the eco idiom at once.
Using green idioms well
- One per sentence. “Green with envy, the greenhorn gave the green light” is a tongue-twister, not a sentence.
- Match the reader. British readers expect green fingers and green belt; American readers expect green thumb and may not know green belt as a planning term.
- Keep the fixed words. Idioms resist small changes: it is green with envy, not green from envy; the green light, not the green signal.
- Literal green can be better. In a description of a forest, “the green light under the trees” is just colour, and that is fine. Readers only need the idiom when you mean the idea.
A short model: “When Ana’s garden won the village prize, her neighbours were green with envy. She laughed it off; three years earlier she had been a complete greenhorn who killed a cactus. ‘The grass is always greener,’ she told them, ‘but only where you water it.'”
Idioms that are often confused
| Mix-up | What is right |
|---|---|
| “green around the gills” for a beginner | It means looking sick. A beginner is just green or a greenhorn. |
| “green thumb” in Britain | British English says green fingers. Both are understood, but each sounds foreign in the other country. |
| “green horn” / “green-horn” | One word: greenhorn. |
| “jealous green”, “green of envy” | The fixed phrase is green with envy. |
| “give the green flag” | The idiom is green light. (A green flag is used in motor racing to start or restart a race, and lately in “green flags” for good signs in a relationship, the opposite of red flags.) |
How formal are they?
- Fine in formal writing: green light, green belt, green space, green shoots, greenwashing, evergreen.
- Everyday, fine at work: green with envy, green fingers / green thumb, go green, the grass is always greener.
- Informal or humorous: green around the gills, greenhorn, the long green, not as green as you’re cabbage-looking.
Practice
Choose the idiom that fits.
- The director finally got the ______ for her film. (green light / green room)
- Everything I plant dies. I definitely don’t have ______. (green fingers / green shoots)
- After three rides on the rollercoaster, Sam looked ______. (green around the gills / green with envy)
- The new intern is a bit ______, but she learns fast. (green / evergreen)
- Painting an oil company’s logo with leaves while it drills new wells is ______. (going green / greenwashing)
- Complete the saying: “The grass is always ______.”
- Which play gave us “the green-eyed monster”?
- Is “greenhorn” one word or two?
Answers: 1 green light; 2 green fingers; 3 green around the gills; 4 green; 5 greenwashing; 6 greener (on the other side); 7 Shakespeare’s Othello; 8 one word.
Quick answers
What does “green with envy” mean?
Very envious of something someone else has: “She was green with envy over my new bike.”
Why is green the colour of envy?
Shakespeare made the link famous with “the green-eyed monster” in Othello. The older idea of bile, a greenish fluid, as the source of bad temper is the usual explanation behind it.
What does it mean to be “green” at something?
To be new and inexperienced, like unripe fruit: “I’m still green at public speaking.”
What does “give the green light” mean?
To approve a plan so it can start, as a green traffic light lets cars go: “The bank gave the green light to the loan.”
Is it “green thumb” or “green fingers”?
“Green thumb” in American English, “green fingers” in British English. Both mean good at gardening.
For the difference between idioms, metaphors and similes, see the figurative language guide.