wild horses couldn't drag (one) to (something)
wild horses couldn't drag (one) to (something)
No force or enticement will make or convince one to go some place. I don't know what to do. Wild horses won't drag my kids to the dentist! I don't know why she bothered asking me if I'd like to go—wild horses couldn't drag me to one of those boy band concerts.
See also: drag, horse, wild
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
wild horses couldn't drag me
Nothing could induce or persuade me, as in Wild horses couldn't drag me to that nightclub. This idiom, always in negative form, is believed to have replaced wild horses couldn't draw it from me, referring to the medieval torture of using horses to stretch a prisoner and thereby force a confession. [First half of 1800s]
See also: drag, horse, wild
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
wild horses
If you say that wild horses would not make you do something, you mean that nothing would make you do it. Wild horses wouldn't drag this secret out of me. Wild horses wouldn't make Nicola sell the house.
See also: horse, wild
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.
wild horses couldn't drag me
Nothing could persuade me. This is the current version of an older term, wild horses couldn’t draw it from me, that is, “make me confess,” which is believed to allude to a medieval torture. The cliché, which always states it in negative form, began to be used by 1834 or so. David Murray used it in Healy (1883): “After that wild horses could not have drawn him to an exculpation of himself.”
See also: drag, horse, wild
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
- doesn't know beans
- (I) can't say as I do(, can't say as I don't)
- all in (one's) head
- don't bet on it
- don't give up the ship
- don't cry before you are hurt
- don't give me that line
- don't give me that story
- don't hand me that line
- don't hand me that story