What Does “quake like a leaf” mean?
Definition:
If you quake like a leaf, you tremble violently because you are afraid, nervous, or very cold.
Other related idioms are the following:
shake like a leaf.
shake in one’s boots.
Here are some synonyms of the term ‘quake’:
vibrate.
tremble.
quiver.
shiver.
shudder.
The origin of the idiom
This idiom alludes to trembling leaves. Geoffrey Chaucer used it in “The Canterbury Tales”. In The Summoner’s Prologue, lines 1-18, the Summoner comments on the Friar’s tale:
High in his stirrups, then, the summoner stood;
Against the friar his heart, as madman’s would,
Shook like very aspen leaf, for ire.
Example(s)
The children were quaking like a leaf when their authoritative father came home.
She was quaking like a leaf when she stood up to give her presentation.
I didn’t think about it at the time, but when I realized that I was in real danger, I was shaking like a leaf.
It was so cold that even my cat was quaking like a leaf.
