over my dead body

I will never allow it; under no circumstances will that be permitted to happen (i.e., something can only happen if I am not alive to prevent it). Over my dead body will you drive home after you've been drinking! A: "I heard Sarah wants to drop out of school to be a painter." B: "Yeah, over my dead body!"

Inf. Fig. a defiant phrase indicating the strength of one's opposition to something. (A joking response is "That can be arranged.") Sally: Alice says she'll join the circus no matter what anybody says. Father: over my dead body! Sally: Now, now. You know how she is. Bill: I think I'll rent out our spare bedroom. Sue: over my dead body! Bill (smiling): That can be arranged.

In no way, under no circumstances, as in Over my dead body will you drop out of high school. This hyperbolic expression is often used jokingly. [Early 1800s]

You use over my dead body to say that you will do everything you can to prevent something happening. They will destroy Penbrook Farm only over my dead body. Arnold Schwarzenegger's wife told him he would go into politics `over her dead body'.

Used to express dramatic refusal.

I will not allow you to do this. This hyperbole, often used in jocular fashion, dates from early-nineteenth-century America. H. Brighouse used it in the one-act play, New Leisure (1936): “Elsie Dixon doing confidential secretary! Over my dead body!” A New Yorker piece about evangelists described a photograph of the evangelist preacher Jerry Falwell plunging down a water slide: “He is clearly not enjoying himself. In fact, the photograph suggests that he is doing this over his own dead body” (1990).