What is the meaning of the phrase ‘like pulling teeth’?
Very difficult to do and very frustrating and uncomfortable to attempt, possibly tedious or even painful.
What is the origin of the phrase ‘like pulling teeth’?
The verb ‘pull’ has been used to mean extracting a tooth since at least the 17th century, since in 1626 in ‘First & Best Part Scoggins Iests’ it was written ‘If you pull any of my neighbours teeth after such sort as you haue done. I will pull out all the teeth in your head’
A later example comes from the year 1831 which was published in the Foreign Missionary Register of The American Baptist Missionary Magazine. There it was written ‘When any person is known to be considering the new religion, all his relations and acquaintance — rise en masse; so that to get a new convert is like pulling out the eye-tooth of a live tiger.’
Meanwhile the earliest quotation of the phrase ‘like pulling teeth’ according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in 1836 in Knickerbocker, which read ‘And for this service to the sons, what did I get from the sires? The pittance of a few dollars, which came like pulling so many teeth’.
A further early reported use comes from Godey’s Lady’s Book published in 1855 in which it is written ‘Some people it’s like pulling teeth to collect from; they dodge and shuffle, and ask me to call again, until sometimes I am quite out of patience.’
